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PROOFS OF THE 
SPIRIT WORLD 



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PROOFS OF THE 
SPIRIT WORLD 

(On Ne Meurt Pas) 

BY 

L. CHEVREUIL 

w 

Translated by 
AGNES KENDRICK GRAY 




NEW YORK 

E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 

681 Fifth Avenue 



Copyright, 1920, by 
E. P. DUTTON & CO. 



All Rights Reserved 



' 9 i92Q 



Printed in the United States of America 



©CI.A565596 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTEB PAGE 

I. The Great Problem . . . . . . 1 

II. Telepathy 16 

III. Organic Disorders 37 

IV. Previous Lives 56 

V. The Established Fact 82 

VI. The Motive Agents 97 

VII. Telepathic Apparitions and Material- 
ized Forms 125 

VIII. Complete Materializations .... 146 

IX. Materializations of Nature . . .170 

X. Spontaneous Manifestations . . . 201 

XI. Manifestations from the Beyond . . 233 

XII. Mors Janua Vitm 262 



lA 






# 



PROOFS OF THE 
SPIRIT WORLD 



PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 



CHAPTER I 
THE GREAT PROBLEM 

The Study of the human soul as a psychic and 
physical entity, will be the science of to-morrow. 
Camille Flammarion. 

Do we really die? Few persons know what answer, 
based upon discovered facts, may to-day be made to 
this important question. Many, indeed, believe that 
there is no longer room for doubt — that immortality 
of the human soul is a fallacy condemned by science. 

Because thinkers and philosophers have not been 
able in the course of the centuries to agree upon any 
one conception of immortality, the spiritualistic idea 
is considered visionary; and curiously, few believe 
that science, which has already solved so many prob- 
lems, can also solve this, the one most deeply signifi- 
cant to mankind. 

Religions give us no certain knowledge, and science, 
accepting only demonstration, does not comprehend 
the language of Faith. 

With respect for old philosophic and religious con- 
cepts, we desire to offend no conviction ; but let those 
who believe that they receive light from above be 
willing, at least, to regard without scorn those who 



2 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

are seeking a solution from Nature; and who dig 
the soil hoping to encounter there a solid base upon 
which they may build. 

It is the year 1916 ; we have seen mankind at work; 
murder, theft and rape have incited no awakening 
of conscience in the neutral nations; the frightful 
storm which scatters death upon Europe has revealed 
many powers, many weaknesses. Something seems 
lacking in the guidance of humanity. 

Nineteenth Century Science committed this vio- 
lence upon reason and denied all that makes for the 
moral grandeur of mankind. It accepted the lie 
that there is nothing else in the universe but matter 
such as we know it: there is no soul, no intelligence; 
there are only reactions. The great scientific dogma 
was therefore that the cause of all things exists in 
this matter, which is reduced by a last analysis to 
the indivisible, indissoluble, eternal atom. To-day 
the dissolution of atoms must be admitted, and as 
it is vain to suppose that the dispersed matter is 
destroyed, we may affirm that the separation of the 
atoms is their passage into a beyond of which science 
knows nothing. 

There are, therefore, other physical possibilities 
than those admitted by or known to science. 

As for spiritualistic doctrines, they are insufficient ; 
I happy are those who have the faith,*but we in our 
"* researches cannot enter the domain of mysticism; we 
must attack the problem from the earth. Studying 
faculties and manifestations of the human soul we 
follow its deviations and aberrations, in order to show 
clearly that its essence is spiritual and that material- 
ism cannot furnish its key. 

We do not die! This is the certainty that we 



THE GREAT PROBLEM S 

may acquire solely by observation applied to facts 
which are accessible to us. Knowledge may replace 
faith. There exists to-day a certain class of facts 
acquired by observation, which prove definitely that 
the soul exists in itself, that it exists before the crea- 
tion of the body, and survives the destruction of its 
mortal abode. 

Many scholars are aware of this; certain of the 
most illustrious have carefully explored the strange 
region of the soul and affirm that by wholly scientific 
methods they have reached assurances of which the 
world at large is ignorant. 

There exists a certain class of facts acquired by 
science, which prove that in the living being exists 
an invisible substance endowed with faculties which 
cannot be explained in relation to matter. This also 
the world does not know. 

Finally, we have a class of facts, more difficult to 
observe scientifically, which, submitted to minute 
examinations, have established that under certain 
conditions, deceased persons have been able to appear 
in the world of living beings. 

The body dies, it is true. But we will begin by 
proving that the body is not all, and that we have 
possibilities of survival in a material substratum 
which never fails us; in other words, that we possess 
at the present time an invisible body which you per- 
haps do not know, and of which we shall speak. 

Some may say, "I want to see before I believe," 
to which we may reply, "You believe in forces . . . 
have you ever seen them?" 

Yet the undisturbed somnambulist sees the mag- 
netic emanations, and sees also the psychic body. As 
for us, we cannot see even the oxygen, which is ma- 



4 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

terially the most indispensable element to us, since 
it is nourishment of life and much more essential 
than food. 

However, little more than a century ago men lived 
in absolute ignorance of this element so necessary to 
life, just as we live to-day in ignorance of this psychic 
element, the true body of the soul, indispensable to 
feeling and action. 

Invisibility has nothing to do with the supernatu- 
ral. The materialists of fifty years ago, who be- 
lieved that visibility or impenetrability was the es- 
sential condition of the material, were really super- 
stitious. 

Scientific spiritualism is established upon material 
bases, which are the foundations of a metapsychology 
of the invisible world. Associated with its observa- 
tions are scholars well qualified to give the facts 
an indisputable value. 

Unfortunately, many men, led astray by the sar- 
casm of a press utterly ignorant of the present state 
of investigation, imagine that the spirits are guar- 
dians or doorkeepers of the beyond, ready to answer 
at the first summons if somebody or other's grand- 
father is among the tenants of the dwelling. There 
is large opportunity for wit in presenting the facts 
of spiritualism, which delights free thinkers. 

Therefore, we must rise above vain mockery and 
have the courage to endure ridicule J the triumph of 
fools will be brief.l 

We must, first of all, study animism, which is at 
once a dogma and an established fact. 

As a dogma, it holds that the soul is the animat- 
ing principle of the body ; as a fact, it is the exterior 
manifestation of forces called animic. 



THE GREAT PROBLEM 5 

Materialists oppose animism to spiritualism. But 
this word animism can have no meaning upon their 
lips, since they will not admit the soul as a principle 
and reject as a fact the exteriorization of the sen- 
sory, motive and intellectual faculties of sensation 
acting outside of the human body. 

Thus they acknowledge the letter and not the 
spirit. It is therefore inconsequent to them to ex- 
plain anything by animism. 

But animism is a fact that they cannot deny; 
therefore it is stubbornness on their part to stand 
fast in their conception of physiology, while, on the 
other side, they combat the spiritualistic conception 
in the name of the animic theory, which for them can- 
not exist. 

The spiritualists teach that without animism there 
could be no possible relation between mind and mat- 
ter. Without animism, there could be no phenome- 
non of inspiration, no presentiment, none of those 
phenomena which make possible communication be- 
tween us and the departed. 

The possibility of spirit manifestation is subor- 
dinate to this very question of animism. 

Fifty years ago, animism was not scientifically 
accredited. That is why science discarded the ques- 
tion a priori. To a Biichner and his disciples $ who 
mistook laws for causes, the question could not even 
be presented. Relying upon the known laws of 
physiology, Biichner declared blindly that they 
implied the rejection, pure and simple, of all action 
from a distance. The reasons for his conclusion 
were pitiable. 

The antiquity of man, he wrote, destroyed the 
tradition of the almanac of Mathieu de la Drome 



6 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

for him — when it asserts that God had not created 
man 2000 years before the deluge, spiritualism 
breaks down. All the arguments of Biichner are of 
this stamp. 

To him, thought-transmission would be a miracle; 
but this action is normally manifested in our organ- 
isms, and to-day it is no longer possible to deny 
that it is shown outside of organisms. However, 
people surrender reluctantly, giving up as little as 
may be, ceding as slowly as possible the ground that 
spiritualistic science is winning, and justifying this 
attitude by donning the hypocritical mask of scien- 
tific prudence. 

There are those who, though convinced of the 
reality of abnormal manifestations, still declare a 
tardy intention of regarding these facts only under 
a conventional aspect. They declare that they must 
study the simplest phenomena before going on to the 
more complex. They forget, however, that before 
pronouncing a judgment, all phases of a phenomenon 
must be studied. 

Those who have, so regretfully, conceded the 
reality of movement without contact, pretend to 
study only the physical side of the manifestation, 
without taking into account the intellectual, of which 
movement it is often but the expression. This is 
called, limiting the field of experiments; in other 
words, forbidding the search for causes. 

Those who wish thus to dictate to us the course 
to follow, assure us that the independent pioneers 
impede and confuse them in their experiments. Let 
us therefore explain this. 

It would be absurd pretension to hold to an ex- 
planation which explains only the simplest facts, 



THE GREAT PROBLEM 7 

while other facts of the same order contradict this 
explanation. 

A fact is a fact, and no one has the right to elimi- 
nate one, however exceptional it may seem. That 
fact, even, which escapes our present comprehension, 
is all the more valuable, because it increases the 
limits of the possible and will serve as a basis for 
future discoveries. 

I dare even to say that the more exceptional a 
fact is, the less chance there is of seeing it repeated 
often, and it becomes more necessary since definite 
proof exists to give it publicity. 

The world must know that such a proof exists, 
lest it be forgotten and the limitation affect a new 
fact. 

We do not find astronomers neglecting even an 
isolated observation and taking no further account 
of a comet's appearance because it has ceased to 
appear. We do not hear them declare that it is 
unnecessary to observe the nebulas, when there is so 
much more to be observed in a nearer field. That, 
however, is the method which they wish to recommend, 
when they say we must not overflow into the sub- 
ject of communication with the beyond, until we shall 
have completely exhausted that of hypnotism. 

Yet who knows which of these two subjects will 
shed its light upon the other? The same physio- 
logical process can produce similar automatic re- 
sults, while the motive agents are different. If M. 
Pierre Janet is able to use hypnotism to produce, in 
an unconscious subject, an automatism of a spiritist 
appearance, he has simply proved that any mind 
could deposit in the lower strata of the organism a 
suggestion of similar nature. Whether the sugges- 



8 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

tion be true or false matters little; M. Pierre Janet 
has created an illusion, let us say. But he could, 
also, have used the same means to convey a real 
message. It is only in looking towards spiritism that 
certain cases become explicable. 

According to the simplest method, we should have 
to conclude that, because one automatism may be 
explicable by spontaneous cellular activities, no other 
automatic action can be attributed to a higher 
source. But observation contradicts, absolutely, this 
conclusion. 

We will not say much concerning table moving. 
That popular phenomenon is sufficiently well known. 

As four or five persons are rarely found who are 
disposed to gather around a table for serious experi- 
ments and it is very difficult to arouse a common 
sympathy among them, only futile results, for the 
most part, are recorded, and indefinite observers 
pronounce definitely a verdict of condemnation. 

Experimentation is difficult, yet we need but to 
study those who have observed seriously, to gain an 
idea of the communications obtained by the lifting 
of objects without contact. 

Here we find again the proof of the fluidic element 
in communication with the brain of the audience, 
made manifest to our senses. 

Therefore, there is round a table something like 
a field of force, created by the fluidic exteriorization 
of all the persons present. There already is soul, 
thinking and acting. This is an animic manifesta- 
tion. 

In the exteriorizable element is a sensitive faculty 
that brings it into relation with the will. There is 
soul everywhere; there is, everywhere, a motive 



THE GREAT PROBLEM 9 

faculty, capable of feeling an influence and of per- 
forming mechanically what the will dictates. 

Man's soul seems so bound to his body that physi- 
ologists ascribe to the body itself movements which 
are determined by the soul. 

It is as if we were to attribute to the telegraph 
wire the production of the electric current whose 
results are visible to us. Indeed, certain accidents 
have definitely established that the soul is not iden- 
tical with the functions of the body, as the mate- 
rialists believe. 

Magnetism and hypnosis alone, already tend to 
prove the action of a psychic force independent of 
the organism. After Mesmer, Puysegur and De- 
leuze, Baron du Potet penetrated far into the mys- 
tery, but the time was not ripe for understanding. 

Charcot saw very clearly the depth of the abyss, 
and dared not face it. "Hypnotism," he declared, 
"is a world wherein one encounters palpable, mate- 
rial, gross facts, side by side with other facts, abso- 
lutely extraordinary, and inexplicable at present, 
following no physiological law and wholly strange 
and surprising. I will address myself to the first 
and leave the latter untouched." 

To-day, however, the hour to study these latter 
facts has come. Facts accumulate, extraordinary 
cases are recorded by competent persons, and they 
prove in a most evident manner, that the bonds which 
unite the soul and the senses are not indissoluble. For 
example, long distance sight, reading without the use 
of the eyes, inversion of senses, etc. 

As early as 1886, Durand de Gros, a learned 
doctor, and, as rarely happens, also a profound 
philosopher, had written in his Physiologie philoso- 



10 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

phique: "If the retina were developed upon the 
spiral blade of the cochlea sonorous vibrations 
would replace light and sounds would be seen. 
Reciprocally, if the acoustic nerve should spread 
its fibers into the eye, luminous rays would become 
sounds." 

This statement, which was for the most part an 
intuition of genius in Dr. Durand, has been confirmed 
by experience, but it is in the invisible organism, the 
psychic body that such inversions may be produced, 
since of course the optic and acoustic nerves cannot 
be substituted one for the other experimentally. Yet 
these nerves are only conductors and it is due to 
their purely conductive faculty that the strange 
transposition imagined by Durand de Gros can be 
accomplished. 

However unlikely that may seem, it is true never- 
theless, and we are able to quote a competent au- 
thority. Here is the testimony of Lombroso : 

"In 1891 I had to contend in my medical practice 
with one of the most curious phenomena ever pre- 
sented to me. I was called upon to care for the 
daughter of a high official of my native city. This 
young person was often seized with paroxysms of 
hysteria, with accompanying symptoms, which 
neither pathology nor physiology could explain. At 
times, her eyes lost their sight, and by inversion, 
the sick girl saw with her ears. With bandaged eyes, 
she was able to read several printed lines held before 
her ear. We placed a magnifying glass between her 
ear and the sunlight, and she felt a burning sensa- 
tion, crying out that she was being blinded. She 
prophesied in detail, with mathematical exactitude, 
everything that would happen to her. 



THE GREAT PROBLEM 11 

"Although these facts were not new, they were 
nevertheless extremely singular. I confess that to 
me, at least, they seemed inexplicable by physio- 
logical or pathological theories as developed up to 
that time. ... It was then that it occurred to me 
that perhaps spiritism might aid me in reaching the 
truth." 1 

In short, the conception of a soul independent of 
the body, an active and no longer a function soul, 
alone might solve this problem to which no material- 
istic conception could offer a solution. 

When a fact of this kind is encountered, there is 
but one path to follow — abandon the obsolete con- 
ceptions and declare frankly that physiology, such 
as taught by dogmatic materialism, will always be 
unable to explain vital movement. 

This is what Lombroso did in repudiating the old 
error. 

Why then do so many others close their eyes that 
they may not see? We must confess, it is because 
our official scholars are very timid — they are afraid 
of having a soul. 

Others are bravely mistaken. They receive the 
evidence of the fact, but are hampered by a pre- 
conceived notion at the very basis of their scientific 
education. The facts are absurd in the face of their 
materialistic faith; they are absurd, inasmuch as the 
soul's existence is judged absurd. But the hypothe- 
sis of the soul makes these facts natural and explic- 
able, shows the bonds which unite them, and strange 
to say, the facts thus interpreted accord with all that 
we know of experimental science; agree with all 

i From the Italian magazine L' Arena, translated into French 
by Dr. Dusart, La Revue Scientifique Morale du Spiritisme, 
Aug., 1907. 



12 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

scientific observations which they admirably explain 
and complete. 

It does not appertain to science to judge matters 
of the soul or of spiritualistic philosophy. These are 
questions beyond its province, but the soul gives rise 
to phenomena of animism, which at the present time 
allude every theory applicable to physical phe- 
nomena. Therefore it is the part of science to dis- 
cover in what realm, ethereal or other, and by what 
theory, undulatory or inductive, might be explained 
the phenomena of action at a distance and of 
thought-transference. 

Above all, science should make the amends honor- 
able to the animistic fact which implies the existence 
of a force which science has always denied; for one 
cannot admit the exteriorization of sensorial, motive, 
or intellectual faculties, without being converted to 
some spiritualistic idea. 

Materialists understood it in this way when they 
opposed every phenomenon of action at a distance 
with the argument of impossibility, for reasons 
which, they said, they alone were capable of appre- 
ciating. 

Action at a distance — they would say to us, pitying 
our ignorance — simply shows us that and your name 
will go down in history, more renowned than Kepler 
or Newton. 

Impossibility has become proof. The names of 
those who have demonstrated it have not become 
great in history, but the fact has become familiar, 
and has been christened Animism. 

Animism, so called, is simply the manifestation of 
the psychic body, an intermediary agency between 
mind and matter. 



THE GREAT PROBLEM 13 

We cannot state that it acts according to physical 
laws, since it is manifested under a form still unknown 
to science. But it is made manifest, and that is the 
essential. 

The data we shall give concerning telepathy are 
the resume of forty years' experiments; those who 
have carried them on are scholars of the highest 
order. The facts which are the basis of our demon- 
strations have been verified or accepted by them after 
serious investigations. 

Leaving out all that pertains to history, tradition 
and legend, we shall endeavor to show that the simple 
statement of observations of material phenomena 
rests upon the word of absolutely competent and 
credible authorities. Then we shall see how the or- 
ganic machine conducts itself in face of these strange 
phenomena; how this delicate instrument is respon- 
sive to influences of inward or outward thought. It 
is this sensitiveness which opens the door to certain 
means of occult communication and makes possible 
a belief in the efficacy of prayer and in inspiration. 

Without making personal hypotheses, we shall set 
forth those statements which have been formulated 
upon animistic polyzoism. 

They seem to correspond strikingly to the prob- 
lems of the constitution of the human soul and the 
evolution of beings, at the same time according with 
all that we know concerning phylogenesis, ontogene- 
sis and embryology. 

Finally we shall demonstrate how we may acquire 
the certainty of after life. 

This conviction scientifically reached cannot but 
contribute to the raising of morale, need of which 
is everywhere felt. In scientific research lies our 



14 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

sole port of refuge. Science, accepting only demon- 
strations, does not hear, does not comprehend the 
language of faith. The facts that we set forth 
demonstrate after life. 

Briefly, the rational basis of morale would be in 
absolute knowledge of the after life; science cannot 
reach this, but it can attain a relative knowledge, 
quite sufficient to prove the presence of soul in na- 
ture; and that there are not only forces but also 
psychic organisms. 

This is enough to cure us of that mental malady 
which causes us to teach that in the human body 
there is naught else but the functions of nutrition, 
circulation and respiration. It is not the activity 
of the liver and the spleen which causes us to love 
the true, the good and the beautiful, which incites 
indignation and arouses enthusiasm — these are indeed 
psychic forces. They so truly exist that, through- 
out the history of humanity, they have always tri- 
umphed over the satanic forces of matter — it is these 
forces that won the battle of the Marne. 

Let us then seek in the empiric experiments of 
animism, clairvoyance and telepathy, the scientific 
weapon with which we may combat the barbarous 
conception of materialism that was leading us to de- 
cadence. This study suffices to reinstate spiritistic 
teaching. Man is so constituted that he is insensible 
to arguments that do not touch him personally; he 
can only adopt a morality based upon knowledge 
of his destiny, since this alone will overcome his in- 
curable egoism. 

He must know that his happiness or unhappiness 
is but a natural consequence of the direction he him- 
self has chosen. He must know that the simple tele- 



THE GREAT PROBLEM 15 

pathic law will subject him, in the Beyond, to the 
severe ordeal of confronting the lucidity of a throng 
of clairvoyant souls who will read him like an open 
book. A man's evil actions will then become the in- 
strument of his own torture. When he can no longer 
endure this he will have to flee the society of these 
clairvoyant souls, seeking solitude and shadows. His 
final escape will be a return — a new incarnation, 
which will be a new ordeal. 

Here is something to move our egoism. If we 
are able to demonstrate that, justly, the happiness 
of each is jointly and severally concerned in the gen- 
eral progress, if we are all responsible, then the 
strong should labor to raise the weak; it will serve 
no end to hate them. Thus we come, by simple 
knowledge of the laws of evolution, under the great 
law of Christ: there is no other issue save to love 
one another and to live each for the other. That is 
the true scientific revelation, which gives us the key 
to a solid, practical and rational moral teaching. 



CHAPTER II 
TELEPATHY 

The action of one being upon another at a dis- 
tance, is a scientific fact, as certain as the ex- 
istence of Paris, Napoleon, oxygen or Sirius. 

C. Flammaeiok. 

About 1882, a committee of well-known English- 
men, who were more interested in intellectual facts 
than in the physical phenomena previously studied 
by Sir William Crookes and Russel Wallace, re- 
solved to devote scientific study to thought-trans- 
ference. With this in view, they founded the Society 
for Psychical Research. Having taken all precau- 
tions to eliminate any possibility of a code of in- 
genious signals being used, they were convinced of 
the reality of thought-transference. 

In the first volume of the organ of this society, 
Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, 
will be found the reports of these experiments, with 
drawings and diagrams that give an idea of the 
results obtained. 

In 1883 and 1884, in Liverpool, Mr. Malcolm 
Guthrie discovered two sensitive subjects among the 
employees of a large woolen house, and began a 
series of experiments with which the great physician, 
Sir Oliver Lodge, was associated. 

Telepathic action is to-day a verified fact, but it 
is also true that it remains indefinable. This action 

16 



TELEPATHY 17 

from a distance requires an intermediary, but no 
one is able to say whether this intermediary is of a 
physical order. The inner life of the soul rises from 
a region unknown to science, a region which by 
hypothesis or for convenience of speech we may call 
the psychic element. Yet despite this, and what- 
ever it may be, it is quite certain that the soul can- 
not be made manifest to this material world except 
by means of a physical expression. 

Telepathic action would be incomprehensible and 
even inconceivable if there were not, in the ether, 
a dynamic element that holds all being in its embrace. 

It is only by the intermediary of this element 
that the relations between body and soul may be 
explained, more especially the telepathic communi- 
cations which experience and repeated observations 
have forced us to admit. 

Telepathy is the universal phenomenon diffused 
throughout the world, the one phenomenon uniting 
all human beings and reaching as well to matter in 
which it calls forth life. 

Existent in the cosmos is an element which is to 
the life of the soul, what oxygen is to physical life. 
The effects of this upon ourselves we shall observe. 

The first experimenters declared that, if spon- 
taneous telepathy gave the results of which we have 
many witnesses, there must be some faculty in man, 
even if it be but a germ, which it must be possible 
to control. 

It was M. Charles Richet, I believe, who first en- 
deavored to establish the matter mathematically by 
applying the experiments to the divinations of num- 
bers in the mind of another ; he obtained only rather 
inconclusive results. 



18 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

In 1886, the Misses Wingfield used Dr. Richet's 
method, but limited the experiment to a number con- 
sisting of two figures, from ten to ninety-nine. Two 
thousand, six hundred and fourteen trials gave two 
hundred and seventy-five successful results ; the 
average probability would have been only twenty- 
nine. 

Four hundred trials of another series, whose prob- 
ability would have been four, gave twenty-seven suc- 
cessful results. 

Enlarging the field of experiments, Mr. Guthrie 
of Liverpool conceived the idea of trying the trans- 
ference of sensations of taste, smell and touch. 
Messrs. Gurney and Myers tasted, smelled and 
touched while the mediums R and E diag- 
nosed their sensations. 

But the most decisive result obtained was re- 
corded through visual sensations. The first trials 
in this class were due, I believe, to the initiative of 
Mr. Rawson. They consisted in obtaining the 
graphic reproduction of a very simple design, such 
as a triangle, ring or flower. These experiments 
were successfully taken up by Mr. Guthrie, repeated 
on the Avenue de Villiers by M. Schmoll and ob- 
served anew by Lombroso and many other psy- 
chologists; briefly, they are now incontestable. 

In all these trials, the drawings have been repro- 
duced with an exactitude that leaves no doubt of 
the transmission of picture. Nevertheless it is cer- 
tain that the percipient does not always see the 
picture traced upon the model, but that he is struck 
by the idea sent to him by the Agent; this is per- 
ception of an active thought. 

In this way a ring traced flat upon the paper; 



TELEPATHY 



19 




20 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

was drawn in perspective; a foot drawn bare was 
represented with a shoe in the replica; a hand is 
indeed reproduced, but not in the same position, 
etc. Therefore we cannot attribute these results to 
the sensitiveness of lower centers. 

It is the normal and conscious sensitiveness which 
registers this kind of perception ; also the experiment 
demands a severe effort upon the part of the per- 
cipient and greatly fatigues him. 

We would also mention the attempts of Com- 
mandant Darget which tended to prove that the 
emission of a thought would have enough objective 
force to make an impression upon a photographic 
plate. He has made many communications upon 
this subject to the Academy of Sciences. All psy- 
chists know of the films representing the bottles 
photographed by Commandant Darget's thought- 
radiation. 

But let us return to telepathy. Images perceived 
by the brain are often rather vague ; those are much 
clearer which are obtained when the agent succeeds 
in influencing the lower organs, whose response, in 
this case, becomes purely automatic. Yet this kind 
of experimentation cannot be undertaken except 
with the aid of specially endowed subjects. We have 
valuable examples of it in the Proceedings of the 
Society for Psychical Research. 

In 1871, during a period of eight months, Mr. 
Newnham carried on a series of experiments through 
the mediumship of his wife, with whom he was able 
to communicate automatically. 

An exchange of questions and replies was made 
by the indirect way of a motive center, which set 
in movement Mrs. Newnham's hand, without her 



TELEPATHY 21 

having the least consciousness of the questions ad- 
dressed to her or the answers which she made. Her 
husband's questions were never formulated, even in 
a low voice ; he wrote them with a pencil well out 
of reach of her glances. 

In the course of his long experiments the replies 
were always in accord with the questions and we 
must note the important fact that five or six ques- 
tions were often put, one after the other, without 
Mrs. Newnham's knowing of what they treated. 

Thus, there was no communication of thought — 
only movement was communicated. Mr. Newnham 
made three hundred and nine of these experiments. 
We will cite the following: 

"At that time," recounts Mr. Newnham, "I had 
a young man studying with me as a private pupil. 
On the 12th of February he returned from his vaca- 
tion, having heard of our experiments, and expressed 
his incredulity in a rather rough fashion. I told 
him that he might try whatever proof he desired, 
with this reserve alone, that I should see the question 
he put. 

"In consequence of this, Mrs. Newnham took her 
place in my study in her accustomed armchair while 
we retired into the living room and closed the door 
behind us. That done, the young man wrote upon 
a piece of paper, 'What is my eldest sister's first 
name?' We returned immediately to the desk where 
the answer already awaited us — 'Mina.' It is the 
familiar abbreviation of the name Wilhelmina. I 
assure you this was completely unknown to me." 

This last remark of the professor has little im- 
portance, the value of the experiment lies in the fact 



22 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

that a secondary center received, from a strange 
thought, movement and direction without passing 
through the central conscientiousness of the medium. 

In space, it is unimportant whether the motive 
agent should have been the husband's thought, that 
of the young man, or the thought of an unknown 
entity. 

This so-called telepathic phenomenon acts in us 
constantly without in the least attracting our at- 
tention. In this way we are in telepathic communi- 
cation with all our organs. 

We also take no note of the telepathic action 
which is translated to us by inspiration. | Who is 
able to affirm whether he, himself, is the author of 
a brilliant idea or of an obsession ? \ 

Who is sure of being the author of his own ideas? 
From a thousand obscure sensations, from reservoirs 
of our memory, we create within ourselves combina- 
tions which we call our thought, but we have only 
made manifest a synthesis of sensations already re- 
ceived which have come to us from sources of which 
we know nothing. 

But we are able to affirm that exterior thought 
flows in upon us in a more direct fashion, and we 
are able to say this from the observations which 
have been made. This influence can be localized; 
sometimes it reaches the brain directly and that 
seems natural. Sometimes it flows directly into 
secondary centers and that seems incredible, super- 
natural. The lower centers act, in this case, ac- 
cording to the normal process known to them alone, 
for they perceive telepathically, being like ourselves 
incapable of determining whence the perception comes 
to them. It is this which gives rise to automatisms. 



TELEPATHY 23 

It is in observing ourselves and in observing the 
automatisms whose source we have been able to 
control, that it has sometimes been possible to de- 
termine the origin of the phenomena. As these 
sources are exterior, it is perfectly certain to-day 
that thought, emotion, and desire may influence at 
a distance either the brain or the sense organs. We 
shall quote some examples. 

Case in Which the Brain Is Directly Influenced 

This is the case to which one pays the least atten- 
tion, because it is the conscious ego which perceives 
this kind of influence, and the ego deliberates whether 
it will accept or reject the influence. Therefore the 
case is apparently normal. 

The following is one of numerous examples taken 
from the collection entitled Telepathic Hallucina- 
tions. 

Mr. A. Skirving, master-mason of the Winchester 
Cathedral, made the following deposition: 

"I was working in Regents Park for Messrs. 
Mowlen, Burt and Freeman, who at this time had a 
contract with the government for all the masonry 
work of the Capitol. I think it was at Gloucester 
Gate — in any case, it was at that gate in Regent's 
Park to the west of the Zoological Gardens in the 
northeast corner of the Park. The distance from 
my house was too great for me to return for lunch 
so I carried my dinner with me and for that reason 
I had no need to leave my work during the day. 

"One day, however, I suddenly felt an intense 
desire to return to my house. As I had nothing to 
do there, I tried to rid myself of this wish but it 



24 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

was impossible. The obsession to return home grew 
from moment to moment, but it was ten o'clock in 
the morning and there was nothing which should 
have called me from my work at that hour. I grew 
restless and ill at ease and felt that I should go, 
even at the risk of being laughed at by my wife; 
I could give no reason for leaving my work and 
losing six pence an hour for a stupid impulse. 
However, I could not rest. Finally I went home, 
moved by an urging which I could not resist. 

"When I reached the door of my house, I knocked 
and my wife's sister opened it. She was a married 
woman who lived several streets farther away. She 
looked surprised and said to me, 'Well, Skirving, 
how did you know?' 'Know what?' I answered. 
'Why, about Mary Ann?' 'I know nothing about 
Mary Ann' (my wife). 'Then, what is bringing you 
back at this hour?' And I answered her, 'I can 
hardly tell you, it seemed to me that I was needed 
here at home. But what has happened?' Then she 
told me that a cab had run over my wife about an 
hour ago and that she had been seriously hurt. She 
had not ceased calling for me since her accident and 
had several violent crises. I hurried up the steps 
and although she was very ill she recognized me 
at once. She held out her arms to me, wound them 
about my neck and pressed my head to her breast. 
The crisis passed immediately, and my presence 
calmed her visibly; then she slept and was better. 
Her sister told me that she had uttered heart-rending 
cries to call me to her although there was not the 
least probability that I would come. This brief 
story has but one merit; it is strictly true." 

Alexander Skirving. 

The action produced upon a brain at a distance 
and by an exterior agent becomes even more evident 



TELEPATHY 25 

when two separated persons simultaneously obey the 
same impulse. 

Here is a case given by a physician, Dr. Ede of 
Guilford : 

Lady G. and her sister had passed the evening 
with their mother, who was in her usual health, 
physically and mentally, at the time of their de- 
parture. In the middle of the night Lady G.'s sister 
awoke, greatly frightened, and said to her husband, 
"I must go at once to my mother — please have the 
carriage called. I am sure that she is ill." 

Her husband, after having vainly tried to per- 
suade his wife that it was only imagination, sum- 
moned the carriage. When she drew near her 
mother's house, at the point of intersection of two 
streets, she saw Lady G. approach in her carriage. 

Each sister asked the other why she was there 
and each gave the same reply, "I could not sleep, 
feeling sure that mother was ill. That is why I 
returned." 

When they reached the house, they saw at the 
door their mother's personal maid and learned from 
her that their mother had been taken ill suddenly. 
She was dying and had expressed an ardent wish to 
see her daughters. 1 

There are hundreds of classic examples which I 
might cite. The following is from the investigation 
of M. C. Flammarion in his book: 

L'Inconnu et les problemes psychiques. 
(The Unknown and Psychic Problems.) 

27th Case: My great Aunt, Mme. de Thiriet, 
feeling that she was dying, appeared, four or five 
hours before her death, to be meditating deeply. 

i Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research. (After 
the pamphlet by Ed. Bennet.) 



26 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

"Are you in greater pain?" asked the lady, who 
told me this incident. "No, my dear, but I have 
just called Midon for my burial." 

Midon was a woman who had served her, and who 
lived at Eulmont, a village 10 kilometers from Nancy, 
where Mme. Thiriet was living. The lady who was 
present during her last moments thought that she 
was dreaming. But two hours later this lady was 
astounded at the arrival of Midon with black gar- 
ments in her arm. She said that she had heard 
Madame call her to attend her deathbed and render 
the last services. 

A. d'Arbois de Jubainville, Retired Custodian 
of Waters and Forests, Chevalier of the Legion of 
Honor at Nancy. 

It will be noted that in this case the agent was 
conscious of the telepathic action produced upon the 
subject. 

The Sense Organs Perceive Telepathically 

In the relations of the brain with the organs 
telepathy acts visibly. Man communicates with his 
sensory organs, such as the visual and auditory 
centers. 

Automatism and hallucination might be easily ex- 
plained as the awakening in special centers of a 
sensation unknown to us. Strangers as we are to 
the inmost perceptions of these small lower centers 
of consciousness, we are fully aware that a sensa- 
tion, known only to them and awakened in them 
without our knowledge, reaches us telepathically, 
and creates in us the identical interpretation what- 
ever may be the cause of the excitation of the organ. 



TELEPATHY 27 

In other words, if a memory is capable of arousing 
a sensation in these lower centers, we are not cap- 
able ourselves of distinguishing this sensation from 
that transmitted by the same organ when it is in 
the presence of the real image. We have thus an 
illusion that is like reality. 

It is doubtless a modified image, as the picture 
produced upon a photographic plate differs from 
nature. But in the consciousness of the percipient 
this image is real and sufficiently similar to be sent 
to the spectator in the manner of a motion picture 
projection. 

Experience and numerous observations of this 
phenomena determine that telepathy reaches not 
only the brain, but is quite capable under certain 
conditions, still unknown, of reaching the psychic 
element directly in its secondary centers of conscious- 
ness. From this it follows that the ego is greatly 
surprised to receive thus indirectly an image which 
it has never seen, or to execute, automatically, ac- 
tions which are beyond the reach of its knowledge. 
That would seem to belie the axiom Nihil in intellectu 
quod non prius fuerit in sensu. 

This proves quite simply that the sense organs 
can be impressed by a foreign influence. The trans- 
mitted image impresses itself first upon the secondary 
center and from there enters the consciousness of 
the percipient. 

Thus telepathy explains not only hallucinations, 
but also suggestions come from without, automat- 
isms, etc. 



28 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

Case in Which Telepathy Reaches the Visual 

Sense 

This case is recorded in the February number, 
1901, of the Journal of the Society of Psychical 
Research, told by Mr. David Fraser Harris, Lec- 
turer at the University of St. Andrew. 

I quote from the magazine: 

A few years ago, pressing business prevented 
my returning home to London at the end of the 
week, and as I did not care to spend Sunday in 
Manchester, I went on the Saturday afternoon to 
Matlock Bath with the intention of spending a quiet 
Sunday there, and returning by an early train on 
Monday morning. On arrival at my destination, a 
small private hotel not very far from Matlock Bath 
Station, I immediately ordered tea and went to the 
sitting room to warm myself as it was a raw, cold 
day in January with a lot of snow about and the 
temperature many degrees below freezing point. 

I happened to be the only visitor at the hotel, 
and I made myself comfortable in a large easy 
chair before a cheerful fire, waiting for my tea. It 
was hardly light enough to see to read. My back 
was turned to the window and I was not thinking 
of anything in particular; I was in a kind of 
passive, tranquil mood, when suddenly I seemed to 
become oblivious to my surroundings and in the 
place of the dark wall and the pictures facing me, 
I saw the front of my house in London with my wife 
standing at the door talking to a working man who 
held a large broom in his hands. My wife had a 
very concerned look, and I felt sure that the man 
was in great distress. I could not and did not of 
course hear what was spoken, but a strong intuition 



TELEPATHY 89 

told me that the man was asking my wife's assistance. 
At that moment the servant entered the room with 
my tea and the scene I had just visualized van- 
ished, and I again realized where I was. I was, 
however, so strongly impressed and so convinced of 
the reality of what I had seen that after tea I wrote 
a letter to my wife telling her of the strange oc- 
currence and asking her to make inquiries about 
the man and to assist him as much as possible. 

What had actually occurred was this: A boy 
knocked at the door of my house (which is roughly 
140 or 145 miles away from where I was) and asked 
the servant whether he might sweep the snow away 
from the pavement and doorway for a penny. 
Whilst the boy was speaking, a poorly clad and ill- 
looking man came and said, "Please let me sweep 
away the snow; this boy very likely will only spend 
the penny in sweets, while I want it for bread. I 
have a wife and four children all ill at home; we 
have no food and not even a fire, and nothing more 
to pawn, and we owe rent." The servant asked 
the man to wait while she told my wife. When she 
came to the door and spoke to him the man re- 
peated his statement to her, and added that he was 
a painter out of work and had been ill and that he 
and his family were in great distress, but that he 
did not want to go to the workhouse for relief if 
he could only get work of some kind. 

It was this scene that I witnessed at the very 
moment it happened and which was probably com- 
municated to me through the impression the man's 
distress made upon my wife's mind. 

The rest of the story is simply this : My wife 
told the man she would call at his home in the course 
of the afternoon and see what could be done. This 
she did and found that the man had told the truth. 
She at once helped the poor family with money, 



SO PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

clothing, food and fuel, and needless to say was 
very much astonished when she received my letter 
on Monday morning which told her what I had seen. 
A few days afterwards, I saw the man and in- 
stantly identified him as the man I had seen in my 
strange vision. He subsequently obtained a situa- 
tion as milk man and for about a couple of years 
regularly called in our neighborhood with a milk 
barrow. 

This is an example of what telepathy may accom- 
plish in reaching the visual sense. By this means 
an image which has never previously been placed 
before a subject may be present itself to him. 

However, it must be noted that the action pro- 
duced upon the secondary center is not exclusive 
of that always vaguer action which tends towards 
the brain. Thus, in the preceding case, we see that 
the husband in telepathic communication with his 
wife sees the same picture that is visible to her, a 
perfectly defined picture, equivalent to a flash of 
reality, since it photographs, so to speak, the 
features of the person. But at the same time, the 
percipient's brain was impressed by something very 
strong which gave him an intuition of what the un- 
fortunate man was asking. That which I wish to 
emphasize here is that telepathic action, exerted 
upon the secondary centers, is clear and precise, 
while it is vague and confused when addressed to 
the principal sense in which it can only arouse in- 
tuition. 

Another fact to be noted is the feeling of cer- 
tainty inspired in those who have received similar 
perceptions. Lady G. and her sister were so firmly 
convinced that it was indeed their mother who called 



TELEPATHY 31 

them that they went through the unwonted proceed- 
ing of summoning their carriages at midnight. The 
mason of Winchester reasoned and struggled in vain 
against a seemingly irrational desire, and yielded 
despite the apparent absurdity of his determination. 
But a person who does not analyze her feelings, like 
the maid Midon, does not even perceive that she is 
the object of a phenomenon — she has felt a reality 
and responds: "Madame called me and I am here." 
On the other hand, a person of high culture, the 
Lecturer of St. Andrew, experienced so little doubt 
that he wrote immediately to his wife to gather in- 
formation upon the subject of this man, apparition 
of whom he did not attribute to a dream. 

Naturally, all the cases of abnormal visions are 
not telepathic. Certain apparitions are due to. 
images really present. For the moment, however, we 
shall not go beyond telepathy. 

Case in Which Telepathy Reaches the 
Auditory Sense 

The following case is taken from Camille Flam- 
marion's book, L'Inconnu et les Problemes Psy- 
chiques, p. 140: 

Mme. A., mother of the person who told me this 
story, had had in her service for several years a 
maid to whom she was deeply attached. The woman 
married and went to make her home upon a farm, 
rather far from the little town where Mme. A. lived. 

One night she awoke suddenly and said to her 
husband: "Listen! do you hear? Madame is call- 
ing me!" But everything was calm and silent and 
her husband tried to quiet her. After a few mo- 



32 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

ments the poor woman, growing more and more 
agitated, declared: "I must go to Madame, she is 
calling me, I am sure that I should go." But her 
husband, still believing her under the influence of a 
bad dream laughed at her, and after a short while 
she grew calm again. 

The next day her husband upon going to town 
learned that Mme. A., taken suddenly ill on the 
previous evening, had died in the night and while 
dying had called for her former maid at the very 
moment when the latter had heard the voice of her 
mistress. 

Suzanne H. 
Paris (Letter 362). 

It would be useless to multiply examples; never- 
theless, as one might bring up the easy explanation 
of an imaginary summons, which by a strange coin- 
cidence was found to correspond with reality, we 
will cite one fact more. 

It is found in a series which disposes of this ob- 
jection. In this case the words which were heard 
by another at a distance were actually spoken by 
the agent in the presence of a witness. 

The following case is of this kind: 

Ulnconnu, XXXIII. 

On the 22nd of January, 1893, I was called by 
telegraph to my aunt, 92 years old, who had been 
ill for several days. Upon my arrival I found my 
dear aunt dying and unable to speak. I took my 
place at her bedside to remain with her to the end. 
About ten o'clock at night, as I was seated beside 
her in a chair, I heard her call out with surprising 
strength : "Lucie ! Lucie ! Lucie !" I sprang up and 
saw that my aunt had lost consciousness, and I 



TELEPATHY 33 

heard the death-rattle in her throat. Ten minutes 
later she drew her last breath. 

Lucie was another niece and my aunt's godchild 
who did not come to visit her often enough, as she 
frequently complained to the nurse. 

The next day I said to my cousin Lucie: "You 
must have been greatly surprised to receive the tele- 
gram announcing our aunt's death." But she re- 
plied : "Not at all. I was somewhat expecting it. Last 
night about ten o'clock, when I was sleeping soundly, 
I was awakened suddenly by having my aunt call 
me, 'Lucie ! Lucie ! Lucie !' and I could not sleep 
for the rest of the night." 

This is the fact which I declare to be true, asking 
you to use only my initials if you publish it, for the 
city where I live is composed, for the most part, of 
futile, ignorant, hypocritical people. 

P. L. B. (Letter 47.) 

Telepathy sometimes affects several centers at 
once, as sight and hearing. For example, there is 
the case of Mrs. Richardson, who, when she had an 
exact apparition of her husband wounded upon the 
battlefield, also heard and recognized his voice, say- 
ing, "Take this ring from my finger and send it 
to my wife," words which the general had indeed 
spoken. Richardson was more than 250 kilometers 
from her. 

This is reported in Telepathic Hallucinations, the 
forty-seventh case, and is surrounded by all the 
guarantees required in a serious investigation. 

Case in Which Telepathy Reaches the Tactile 

Sense 

In the most usual case, there exists a certain sym- 
pathy at a distance, as when a blow or wound is 



34 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

distinctly felt by a parent or friend of the agent at 
the very moment when the latter is struck. 

We find an excellent example of this in Telepathic 
Hallucinations, case CXXII, reported by Mrs. 
Severn (p. 40). 

Brantwood, October 27, 1883. 

I awoke suddenly, feeling that I had received a 
violent blow upon the mouth. I had the distinct 
sensation of having been out of doors, and that I 
was bleeding above my upper lip. 

Sitting up in bed I seized my handkerchief, 
crumpled and pressed it against the wounded spot. 
A few seconds later, in removing it, I was greatly 
surprised to see no trace of blood. I realized only 
then that it was impossible that anything could have 
struck me, for I had been lying in my bed and sleep- 
ing soundly. ... I thought I had merely been 
dreaming. But I looked at my watch, and seeing 
that it was seven o'clock and that Arthur (my hus- 
band) was not in the room I concluded rightly that 
he had gone out for an early morning sail on the 
lake as the weather was fine. 

Then I once more fell asleep. We breakfasted at 
nine-thirty. Arthur came in a little late and I 
noticed that he sat farther from me than usual 
and from time to time unobtrusively put his hand- 
kerchief to his lips as I myself had done. 

"Arthur," I said to him, "why do you do that?" 
and then added, somewhat disturbed, "I know you 
have hurt yourself, but I will tell you afterwards 
how I know." 

"Well," he began, "when I was in the boat just 
now, a sudden puff of wind came up and the tiller 
struck me on the mouth. I received a violent blow 
on the upper lip, which has bled a great deal, and 
I could not stop the blood." 



TELEPATHY S5 

Then I said, "Have you any idea at what time 
that happened?" "It must have been about seven 
o'clock," he answered. I then told him what had 
happened to me, and he was greatly astonished as 
were all the persons who were breakfasting with us. 

This occurrence took place at Brantwood about 
three years ago. 

Joan R. Severn. 

Case in Which Telepathy Reaches the Senses 
of Taste and Smell 

These cases are naturally much less numerous, for 
the simple reason that the senses of smell and taste 
are not the ordinary agencies of our relations. 

However, we are certain that telepathy is a uni- 
versal phenomenon and that none of our senses are 
refractory to this means of communication. In the 
first place several experiments have yielded con- 
vincing evidence and in the second, we have examples 
spontaneously observed. We cite only the follow- 
ing: 

Telepathic Hallucinations, p. 327. 

January 26, 1885. 

In March, 1861, I was living at Houghton Hants. 
My wife who had delicate bronchial tubes was kept 
in the house at this season. One day, as I was 
rambling along a path bordered by hedges, I found 
the first wild violets of the spring and gathered the 
flowers to carry them to my wife. 

At the beginning of April I felt seriously ill and 
in June left the country. I had never told my wife 
exactly where I found the violets and, for the reason 
mentioned, I had not for many years walked with 
her in the place where I gathered the flowers. 



36 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

In November, 1873, we were at Houghton with 
some friends; my wife and I took a little stroll in 
this path. On crossing the place a memory of the 
spring violets I had plucked over twelve years before 
suddenly came into my mind. After the usual in- 
terval of about twenty or thirty seconds my wife 
remarked. "It is strange, but if it were not im- 
possible, I would declare that I smell violets in the 
hedge." 

I had not spoken, nor made the least gesture or 
movement to indicate the subject of my thoughts, 
and the perfume of the violets had not come into 
my memory. The only thing of which I had thought 
was the place where the violets grew upon the bank. 
I have an extremely exact memory of places. 

Such are the facts; we might multiply examples 
for each of these series, for the documentation has 
become extremely rich since the Society for Psychical 
Research has gathered together the material, and 
similar investigations have been undertaken by those 
scholars who were willing to interest themselves in 
these phenomena. 

It follows that among all human beings there is 
a possibility of transference of all sensations in 
general, and particularly of thought, at a great 
distance and that images thus transmitted are not 
illusory. In other words, telepathy can no longer 
be denied. Aside from this, there exist certain 
phenomena which seem also to produce objective 
images, where there is an absence of all objectivity. 
We shall see that there is no way of confusing these 
with the preceding telepathic cases. 



CHAPTER ni 
ORGANIC DISORDERS 

What indeed is this demon that ravages our 
organs with the swiftness of lightning and the 
power of thunder? It is an idea — a simple idea. 

Dtjhaxd de Geos. 

The physiologic process which creates false 
images within us does not differ greatly from that 
which transmits telepathic images. But the distinc- 
tion between telepathy and hallucination is so easy 
to establish that it is strange that cultivated minds 
have confused such different effects, even to the 
point of explaining the former by the latter and 
attributing to both the same origin. 

Telepathy is authentic. Hallucination is false. 
Telepathy enters our being by no known material 
way ; hallucination enters by the usual channel of the 
senses. 

Telepathy comes from an actual outward source; 
hallucination wells up within ourselves. 

Finally telepathy appears in quietude and medita- 
tion, and oftenest in connection with intimate cir- 
cumstances, and is never repeated. 

Hallucination, on the contrary, is manifested in 
excitement and persists or is subject to reappear- 
ance. 

In the cases we have given above, which are as- 
suredly attributable to exterior agencies, it was 
always found that the percipient had never had 

37 



38 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

similar visions nor hallucinations of any kind. The 
image never reappears after the moment when the 
agent is supposed to have exerted his influence. If 
there is repetition, it is to overcome the resistance 
of the percipient when he refuses to let himself be 
convinced; afterwards the obsession disappears. 

The telepathic actions, of which we have related 
several examples, present none of the characteristics 
of hallucinations induced by organic disorders, and 
elude all the definitions quoted by Briere de Bois- 
mont. 

De Boismont only observed effects produced by 
organic disorders, although he reports some which 
certainly have their foundation in telepathy, but he 
makes no distinction between them. The vapors of 
an overheated brain suffice to explain everything for 
him, and even when he finds himself facing a true 
case of apparition, it is still with the theory of the 
overheated brain that he finds his way out. 

If he had been better acquainted with the facts, 
he would not have generalized as he did; indeed the 
examples he cites and analyzes assume a character- 
istic which is lacking in apparitions; it is the per- 
manence of morbid states. 

It is always possible to ascertain the cause of 
hallucinations, they are due to fatigue, fright, fixed 
idea, or alcoholism. This type is common in the 
quotations of B. de Boismont. Here is one taken 
at random: 

Obs. 130. A little girl, nine or ten years old, had 
spent her birthday in company with several other 
children, in giving herself over to all the amusements 
of her age. Her parents, of very narrow religious 
views, had constantly told her stories of the devil, 



ORGANIC DISORDERS 39 

hell and eternal damnation. That evening, upon 
entering her bedroom, the devil appeared and threat- 
ened to devour her. She uttered a loud cry, fled 
into her parents' room and fell at their feet as 
though dead. A doctor was called and restored her 
to consciousness after several hours. The child then 
told what had happened to her, adding that she 
was certain of being damned. The occurrence was 
immediately followed by a long and serious nervous 
illness. 

This type of apparition was formerly very fre- 
quent. Dr. Macario, in his Clinical Studies upon 
Demonimania expresses the opinion that this form 
of madness is common among the provincial mentally 
deranged, which he attributes to the fact that mate- 
rialism has not become as deeply rooted in French 
soil as one might believe. 

"Dread of the devil," declares de Boismont (p. 
134), "and fear of future punishment once exercised 
a powerful influence upon the mind. In the space 
of six years we observed about fifteen cases in our 
establishment." 

The fixed idea also may create apparitions of the 
deceased. In this category fall the hallucinations of 
criminals pursued by their victims. Among other 
cases, Briere de Boismont cites that of Manoury, 
who had been guilty of the most egregious barbarism 
toward Urbain Grandier. 

Obs. 124. One evening, toward ten o'clock, 
Manoury, returning from a visit to a patient in 
the outskirts of the town, and walking with a friend 
and his brother, suddenly cried out, "Oh, there is 
Grandier ! What do you want with me ?" He began 
to tremble and fell into a frenzy from which his 



40 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

two companions could not restore him. They led 
him home, trembling and speaking to Grandier whom 
he believed he still saw. 

During the few days that he lived, his state was 
unchanged. He died, always believing that Grandier 
was present and striving to ward off his approach 
while uttering terrible speeches. 

The distinctly marked characteristic of hallucina- 
tion is this persistence or repetition of the disturb- 
ance; and is an attribute lacking in telepathic 
visions. 

"Sully," continues Briere de Boismont, "relates 
that the lonely hours of Charles IX became frightful 
because of the repetition of moans and shrieks that 
assailed his ears during the massacre of Saint 
Bartholomew." 

If now we wish to consider apparitions, as ob- 
served to-day, we will find that they are always 
presented opportunely and in quiet. This is not the 
case with hallucinations. If the latter can be ex- 
plained by illness, remorse, fright, etc., the former 
are never due to similar causes. We find their in- 
contestable source in a telepathic action, distinct 
from cerebral activity each time that it is possible 
to trace back to the sources. 

It seems to us, then, that we should apply the 
word hallucinations only to those images which have, 
for the deluded one, the same value as the objects, 
and which are internal in their origin. Another word 
is needed to designate the image transmitted by 
the telepathic channel, that is to say, conveyed from 
an exterior source. 

True hallucination always has an internal cause; 
popular language instinctively words it thus: "To 



ORGANIC DISORDERS 41 

put the thought on yourself," and this phrase ex- 
presses it exactly. 

The thought put on oneself is a self-created illu- 
sion, a sort of auto-suggestion which incites hal- 
lucination. As a result of dwelling too much upon 
the devil, one ends by causing him to appear. 

But it should be well understood that all of this 
may be explained by telepathy. We must not forget 
that there are within us unknown psychic centers, 
which under the stress of emotion become creators 
of images. These psychic centers are qualified to 
perceive telepathic sensations, whether they be con- 
veyed from our own brain or from an outside brain, 
and the difference is non-essential. 

Ordinarily these centers communicate telepathic- 
ally with us or at least we are only conscious of 
those images which we transmit to them, and of 
those to which we make a telepathic appeal in the 
operations of memory. The new phenomenon, which 
to-day is verified, is that these secondary centers can 
be reached from external sources without our being 
conscious of the fact. 

Since telepathic action is a universal phenomenon, 
there is no smallest physiological center which has 
not of its own consciousness and sensitiveness, and 
which does not perceive the effects of our thought. 
Consequently, a man tormented by a fixed idea, by 
remorse or fear, for instance, deeply affects these 
tiny organs, impressing thereon the creations of his 
thought. In them is produced an image or, rather, 
a sensation, analogous to that which exists when 
the individual is in the presence of a real image. 

By reason of the intensity or persistence of the 
image created under force of a strong emotion, the 



42 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

secondary center holds this deeply cut image, and 
it only requires an occasion to arouse it, as a 
memory, in order to produce the appearance of 
reality. 

Thus one would understand the psychologic 
automatism obedient to its own activities, reviving 
the image when the emotion recalls it, and sending 
it back in the manner of a cinematographic projec- 
tion, to the brain of its creator. 

It is thus that we might accept the theory of the 
overheated brain as an explanation of certain phe- 
nomena. But how may we apply the hallucination 
theory to images which are transmitted by others 
and arise from realities? They act but feebly upon 
the organs which are not habitually influenced at a 
distance. Few subjects are capable of receiving 
them and usually it is an accident which happens 
but once in the lifetime of a percipient. These 
images are true, because the emotions which aroused 
them are not feigned. However, some mesmerists 
boast of having thus transmitted fictitious images. 
From this they have drawn absurd conclusions which 
to their minds explain the illusion of spirits. But 
these experiences, if they could be taken up again 
experimentally, would prove only one thing: that 
thought-transference is perfectly true; if the mes- 
merist succeeded in deceiving the medium with a 
fictitious image, he would have been equally able to 
transmit a true one. From this the proof follows 
that minds can communicate, and whether they be 
of the living or the dead is of no importance. We 
have before us a fact — there is a psychic element, 
and we should study this unknown element. 

Organic disorders affect not only the sensory 



ORGANIC DISORDERS 43 

organs ; far more extraordinary are the disturbances 
manifested in the motive centers. Without doubt, 
from the moment we admit there is no smallest 
physiologic center without its own consciousness and 
activity, it is easy to understand the spontaneous 
psychic action of the lower strata. Conceive a sort 
of psychic traumatism, some cause, physiological or 
otherwise, intercepting the communication between 
the little souls below and the unity that rules above ; 
telepathic transmission being once interrupted, each 
physiological center regains its independence. 

It is these abnormal states which initiate auto- 
matic actions, and particularly the phenomenon 
known under the name of "automatic writing." 

When we produce writing, the motive centers 
which receive our suggestions remain perfectly un- 
aware of the current of our thought ; they execute 
only movements, and the motion they produce is 
outside of our personal consciousness. Thus I do 
not need to know the special locations of the motive 
centers, to act upon them. I dictate the succession 
of letters, without being cognizant of the manner in 
which my organism obeys me. If this organism is 
left to itself, and receives no further suggestion 
from without, since it is living it itself, it has a 
tendency to activity. It is reduced to its sole con- 
sciousness, that of movement, and produces the only 
movements known to its feeble memory — down 
strokes, letters in incoherent succession — and phy- 
siologists refuse to admit phenomena of a higher 
order. 

It is true that organic disorders produce inco- 
herent, childish or cryptic effects. But side by side 
with these are stupefying results, necessitating the 



44 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

active intervention of an understanding, inquiring 
intelligence that informs us of facts concerning 
which we had no knowledge. Therefore, here as 
before, we are obliged to admit two different motive 
powers for the same phenomenon. 

We are then obliged through empiric demonstra- 
tion to establish two classes of phenomena : 1. Those 
which are due to awakening of unconscious activi- 
ties. 2. Those due to intelligences awake of them- 
selves, but remaining unconscious for the subject 
who produces them. 

Or better: 1. Incoherent movements from an in- 
ternal source. 2. Coordinated movements from an 
external source. 

This, as may be seen, is the distinction that we 
have already stated between hallucinations and tele- 
pathic phenomena which reach the sense organs, and 
it applies equally well to the same phenomenon cap- 
able of reading the motive organs. 

If we now pass from handwriting to the observa- 
tions of general disorders, we will fall into such an 
abyss of complications. I do not wish to treat the 
subject here, but solely to indicate its nature. It 
is a question of manifestations of different person- 
alities which are sometimes present in the same 
organism and appear now as a division of person- 
ality, now as the true possession of all the organs, 
fallen under the power of a foreign influence. 

The soul is complex, its unity exists only in re- 
lation with the individual who knows himself in what 
is called his ego. But the psychic realm is com- 
posed of a multitude of little souls whose mass is 
divisible and in which a certain disorder is mani- 
fested. 



ORGANIC DISORDERS 45 

A man may be seen under two very different 
aspects ; a professor of mathematics in his class 
room reveals only a part of himself; he forgets 
momentarily all that is not related to his special 
subject. But perhaps outside of his class he may 
be a good musician; his family will see him oftener 
under the aspect of a violinist. Suppose, now, that 
as the result of an accident, this man has lost all 
memory of music ; he remains only a mathematician, 
and if you speak to him of his violin he does not 
understand you, he has never even played one. But 
at the end of several days the memory of the musi- 
cian returns and, on the other hand, mathematics 
is forgotten. Such is the aspect — I do not say 
explanation — but it is the aspect under which a 
certain known phenomenon, called division of per- 
sonality, is presented. 

But it also may happen, that a somnambulistic 
state may be revealed, during which, as an actor 
plays a role, the sub j ect embodies with marvelous suc- 
cess the type of personality that may be proposed 
to him. However, this effort does not bear examina- 
tion, because the subject keeps to generalities and is 
always incapable of giving evidence of special knowl- 
edge. 

But a new personality appears who knows no one 
of those present, whose social condition is different, 
and who shows that he possesses certain knowledge 
which by no possible hypothesis could be attributed 
to the somnambulistic subject. He seems, therefore, 
possessed by an influence foreign to himself. It is 
a phenomenon often presented by Mrs. Piper in a 
state of trance. To this the Society for Psychical 



46 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

Research has devoted several large volumes of its 
annals. 

Let us assume that an experiment made by com- 
petent authorities, however inexplicable it may be, 
becomes a truth, empirically stated, which suffices to 
admit it as a basis of future deductions. The case 
is inexplicable physiologically, yet remains a truth 
valuable to retain. 

But to repeat, we fall here into an abyss of com- 
plexity; it seems sometimes that a partial amnesia 
occasions in the subject the effacement of an entire 
period of his existence and yet, what is more aston- 
ishing, there is nothing, aside from that to indicate 
a disordered condition in the person. He is unaware 
that he does not remember. 

Thus an educated and carefully reared person falls 
into a trance, from which he awakens with a changed 
character and with no recollection of his previous 
condition. He no longer knows his intimate friends, 
his writing even is changed; in short, he is another 
person. A new crisis occurs and he awakes in his 
first state, entirely ignorant of the second state from 
which he has just come. 

Dr. Azam of Bordeaux, I believe, observed a case, 
which has become classic, in the person of Felida, 
whose changes of personality were manifested 
throughout many years. Almost each day an attack 
seized her and another person would appear, igno- 
rant of the song she had just sung before the crisis, 
unable to continue the needlework that she held in 
her hand. It became necessary for her family to put 
her in touch again with her work, in her new state. 

Becoming pregnant in her second state, she was 
absolutely unaware of it, in returning to her first 



ORGANIC DISORDERS 47 

state. Felida II had a little dog of which she was 
very fond; Felida I drove it away as an intruder. 

Despite all the appearances of a possession, one 
may see, in these phenomena, the alternation of a 
personality, of which each role embraces but one 
period of time in the subject's life. For example, 
Felida I might possess only the memories of her 
girlhood, while Felida II would only know what 
had taken place after a certain date. We shall not 
seek to explain this appearance of alternating life, 
but merely mention it. 

There are numberless cases of division, in which 
the subject relives periods of his past existence and 
each period brings with it the corresponding morbid 
states. Occasionally we see a subject who has been 
extremely nearsighted and obliged to wear glasses, 
enjoying excellent sight in one of these states. 
Finally, this change in intellect, memory and moral- 
ity remains a mystery, unexplained by physiology, 
and one which psychology is still far from elucidat- 
ing. 

The Alcan Publishing House brought out in 1911 1 
the French translation of the case of Miss Beau- 
champ. Several personalities were manifested in this 
subject of Dr. Prince. Aside from the normal per- 
sonality, we find three others, differing in ideas, 
belief and temperament. Memories are also distinct 
for each personality. 

Therefore there are four personalities. The first, 
Miss Beauchamp, splendidly endowed and studious, 
suffers a nervous shock, to which the doctor attrib- 
utes the appearance of the disorders which followed. 
1 La Dissasociation d'une Personalite, by Morton Prince, 
translated into French by Renee J. Ray and Jean Ray, Felix 
Alcan, Paris, 1911. 



48 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

The second, B2, is only Miss Beauchamp put into 
an hypnotic state by Dr. Prince, who is perhaps 
wrong in considering B2 as a personality of the 
same nature as the others. 

The third, B3, seems the incarnation of a malicious 
spirit, who takes possession of the organs of Bl in 
order to live in a borrowed body and who thus deeply 
troubles her existence. 

The fourth, B4, represents another enigmatic 
character, which is, perhaps, only a division of Bl, 
in a state of personal diminution B4 represents an 
ordinary woman, less refined than Bl, a frivolous 
woman, living for herself. 

In reality, there are, from our point of view, only 
two new persons. The somnambulistic state is well 
known and, we believe, has no great relation with 
the mysterious entities which are present. The mes- 
merized subject is incontestably a new form of the 
subject, a new state of her ego. 

We cannot make the same statement concerning 
B2 and B4, who present themselves as foreign influ- 
ences. 

B3 received the name of Sally, and is a problem. 
She plays no part, she seems a distinct entity come 
into the body to amuse herself at her victim's ex- 
pense, a parasite who wishes to enjoy life and sub- 
stitute herself for Miss Beauchamp, while profiting 
by the latter's terrestrial relations. 

She differs from the other personalities in that 
the doctor, while treating his subject by hypnotism, 
can, at pleasure, bring Miss Beauchamp to the state 
of B3 or B4, but he can neither call upon nor expel 
Sally, who resists his suggestions. Indeed, it is often 
she herself who makes the suggestions; in her 



ORGANIC DISORDERS 49 

struggle against the doctor, she suggests to Miss 
Beauchamp to understand quite the opposite of 
whatever he may be saying to her. 

Thus the life of Miss Beauchamp alternates be- 
tween three different conditions, which render her 
existence all the more difficult, as the doctor who 
hypnotizes her seems not to have acquainted her con- 
nections with these changes. We can understand the 
forlorn existence of one who, knowing nothing of her 
periods of absence, awakens in an unknown place, 
talking with people whom she does not know, or at 
least perceiving that she is not in touch with the 
questions under discussion, and who keeps apart, 
wondering always if she is not going mad. 

But Sally is a veritable little demon; unknown to 
Miss Beauchamp, and possessing all her organs, she 
writes letters, and makes appointments. We may 
imagine the astonishment of poor Bl who finds these 
inexplicable letters and believes herself possessed of 
the devil! One thing alone moves Sally, the fear of 
losing this body which she abuses. The thought that 
the death of Miss Beauchamp would deprive her of 
her pleasures, makes her slightly more reasonable. 
Therefore she made a compact with the doctor, who 
had been unable to command her. 

Naturally, a professor of pathology of the nerv- 
ous system would put forth the thesis that there is 
no distinction to be made among these several per- 
sonalities, all of which he considers as divisions of 
the ego. However, I should like to present some 
objections in behalf of the unity and indivisibility of 
the human being, which theory it seems is rather 
lightly handled, when similar cases are treated. 

The different aspects of the ego do not necessarily 



50 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

pertain to division. Mons. de Roches has distinctly 
shown in his studies upon the regression of memory, 
that the same subject, carried back by hypnotism 
through previously lived years, is seen under vary- 
ing aspects and with different characteristics. Here, 
however, there is neither change nor dissociation of 
personality; there is return to a former state, dif- 
fering greatly from the present state, by reason of 
his changed life and progress of his education. Here 
is nothing to lead one to infer a division of the ego. 

B4, one of the personalities who appeared, is, 
according to Dr. Prince, a person of this kind, seized 
with an amnesia that veils from her for the time being 
an entire period of her life. The subject takes up 
her life when she was eighteen years old, and is 
unaware of all that Miss Beauchamp has accom- 
plished and learned since then. Therefore there is 
no change in the ego. There are the same will, emo- 
tion and sensibility that live and move in a group 
of images and recollections common to both person- 
alities up to the eighteenth year, but which differ 
from the moment when B4 manifests a lapse of 
memory. 

That is why I feel I should be reserved in this 
war of words which discourses so freely upon the 
dissociation of the ego. 

Until now we have called this central seat of con- 
scious life which manifests itself as an indivisible 
entity, the ego. 

If It is used in another sense, it is necessary to 
warn the reader. Arms and legs have nothing in 
common with the ego, and I confess that I do not 
understand this hypothesis of dissociation. 

When one speaks of a division of the ego, it ap- 



ORGANIC DISORDERS 51 

pears to me senseless; the subconscious ego itself 
seems to be nonsense; subconsciousness, simply, suf- 
fices for me. The subconsciousness which acts un- 
known to a conscious subject is not himself, since by 
himself, I mean his conscious part. In short, I have 
need of a comprehensible hypothesis, and I cannot 
allow discussion of an ego that is outside of myself. 
My subconsciousness is the under-being, beyond my 
consciousness. 

To express an hypothesis upon dissociation, 
there must be clarity of image. If the ego should 
be considered as a part of the material being, dis- 
sociation would be none other than a traumatic 
nervous affection, causing local paralysis. If it 
belongs to the psychic center which is self-cognizant, 
it is indivisible. In the first case, there can only be 
a mutilation of the being, and the parts are less than 
the whole; in the second, there can be but alterna- 
tions of the personality. 

In the case of Miss Beauchamp, certain persons 
speak ingenuously of the coexistence of several egos 
forming the different personalities. This recalls the 
mystery of the Trinity, according to which there are 
three Gods in One Person, each co-equal. 

Let us admit that the course of life is an aggre- 
gate of ideas and memories that form strata, as a 
tree whose years are counted by the rings, but this 
aggregate is distinct from the ego. It is only in 
conceiving the subject as in touch with several of 
these concentric strata, that I can create for myself 
an objective representation of what a change of 
personality might be. 

Thus we may imagine the life of Miss B. as con- 
centric circles representing the years she has lived 



52 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

and we shall see that B4 is only the subject herself, 
presenting a lapse of several years. 

As for the artificial states, obtained through hyp- 
notism, we should not, I believe, consider them as per- 
sonalities. The problem, as concerning Miss B., is 
truly more complex and offers so strange an assem- 
blage, that we may well imagine that a foreign mani- 
festation has been introduced among the other phe- 
nomena. B3, called Sally, is not explicable by a 
redoubling of the ego, a formula which presents 
nothing tangible to the imagination. In order to 
express a concrete thought it was necessary to 
imagine groups of states of consciousness, which 
would have created a second ego unknown to the 
first. But these dissociated states cannot create a 
being ex nihilo, without the affinity of the conscious 
ego. 

By dissociation, we understand a group of iso- 
lated images ; the noise of the street that strikes our 
ear without attracting our attention, a detail me- 
chanically observed, while the mind is busy elsewhere 
i — these are images which may survive in our subcon- 
sciousness in the state of dissociation. Yet these 
images must rise to the higher consciousness, else 
they are as though dead; such a group of memories 
cannot animate itself to the point of creating a new, 
even though an artificial, personality. Is Sally fac- 
titious? All the personalities of Miss B. may be 
alternating states of a single ego, all save Sally. To 
call her the alter ego of Miss B., as does Dr. Prince, 
is to lay the problem but not to solve it. Sally 
affirms her independence by her acts and Miss B., 
when in a state of hypnotic lucidity, declares: "We 
are all the same person, except Sally." 



ORGANIC DISORDERS 53 

Dr. Prince refuses to admit Sally, but she has 
diabolical tricks and ruses. Herself rebellious to 
suggestion, it is she who imposes her will upon Miss 
Beauchamp, by means of hypnotic and post-hypnotic 
suggestions. She follows her whims, writing letters 
which she posts, smoking cigarettes to annoy her 
medium, whose reserve and scruples she detests. 
Finally she wastes her money, destroys her bank 
notes, and treats Miss Beauchamp as a stupid victim. 

When Miss B. is in her normal state, Sally is 
always there, as an exterior witness who later will 
be in touch with all her acts. In the same way Sally 
is aware of whatever the other personalities do. The 
others, on the contrary, are nonexistent and incapable 
of knowing what Miss B. has done in her normal 
state. By means of her knowledge, Sally endeavors 
sometimes to conceal her coming and tries to play 
the part of Miss B. ; but as she has not the same 
education the doctor unveils her ruse by causing her 
to speak French. Sally, who does not know French, 
seeing herself caught, bursts into laughter and ex- 
hibits her true colors, greatly pleased with the joke. 

Sally can even recount dreams, which fact proves 
that she exists or coexists, at the time of the me- 
dium's conscious activity. Another peculiarity 
which distinguishes her from the other personalities 
is that physiologically she adopts herself with dif- 
ficulty to the organs. Having much trouble to speak, 
she stammered terribly in the beginning; once she 
demanded the use of her eyes and opened the lids 
with her hands. She declares that this body is en- 
tirely foreign to her, as a garment, and that within 
it she feels no illness, neither fatigue, hunger nor 
thirst. 



54 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

The following is an example of the incarnations 
of Sally. On Christmas Eve Miss B. was at Church, 
seated on the right side of the nave. The choir was 
singing the processional. Suddenly she found herself 
on the left side and the choir still singing the pro- 
cessional. Twenty-four hours had passed for her 
like twenty-four seconds ; Sally had confiscated her 
and brought her back the next day to the spot where 
she had been seized. Sally had profited by the invi- 
tations sent to Miss B., taken to herself all the 
Christmas pleasures, and had enjoyed herself 
greatly. 

There are other and even better illustrations. 
Once, when Miss B. was in the throes of the most 
violent delirium, Sally intervened, absolutely in her 
right mind, consented to be her nurse, and came at 
intervals to swallow the food or medicine, which the 
patient, in her delirium could not take. 

The lucid mind appearing at the same time as the 
delirious state, is one of the facts which prove the 
presence of two distinct entities. It is impossible to 
conceive of the ego thus severed in half. 

The conception that we have of an ego will not 
permit us to imagine the simultaneousness of these 
two contrary states in a single unity. To declare 
that Miss B. and Sally act under the influence of 
a single ego is to say there are two egos of the 
same person, which is accepting words whose mean- 
ing is inconceivable. 

It was easy to speculate concerning the arbitrary 
divisions of personality, but it is not so easy to give 
them an appearance of reality; Sally is too large a 
part to have been detached from the principal con- 
sciousness of Miss B. without the latter having been 



ORGANIC DISORDERS 55 

diminished; the disintegration of Miss B.'s person- 
ality into so many small parts is purely arbitrary. 
Sally does not find her place in this scheme. No 
ego is found to which she is akin, and the mystery 
has not been elucidated. It is true we cannot say 
that she is a spiritual entity of the nature of those 
who give proofs ; but there is here a mysterious entity 
which might have been studied with profit. Here we 
have the manifestation of a foreign activity, whose 
secret lies in the unknown. All this proves, at least, 
the existence of a new world, which has not as yet 
been sufficiently explored. 



CHAPTER IV 
PREVIOUS LIVES 

I am thine invisible sister, I am thy divine soul, 
and this is the book of thy life. Within it are the 
pages filled with thy past existences and the white 
pages of thy future lives. 

(The Book of the Dead) 
Funeral Ritual of the Egyptians. 

The soul is an entity distinct from the body; it 
accompanies the essential part of the human being 
in the course of the numerous incarnations necessary 
to our evolution. From the time of Plato the ma- 
jority of men have lived in the knowledge of this 
truth, and to-morrow they will dwell in the scientific 
certainty that this ancient philosophy has not de- 
ceived them. 

It is magnetism which is destined to reveal to us 
the fact that we have lived in the past. The labors 
of M. de Rochas, upon the regression of memory, 
have opened new vistas, of which we will speak 
briefly. 

We knew already that a subject, transported by 
magnetic passes into a former state — to childhood, 
for instance — would appear tractable to this sugges- 
tion. But this was generally believed to be the hack- 
neyed phenomenon which induces a hypnotized sub- 
ject to accept the part proposed, as that of an old 
man, a priest, a general, etc. Yet along with these 

56 



PREVIOUS LIVES 57 

fictitious roles, are realities; thus it is well known 
that hypnotism may be misused to draw true reve- 
lations from a subject, or force him to confide his 
secrets. Not everything is false in the hypnotic con- 
dition, and the subject who returns to his childhood 
is playing a part that is a true repetition of states 
formerly lived. 

Colonel de Rochas, a remarkable experimenter, has 
introduced an innovation by submitting different sub- 
jects to methodical tests of memory regression, and 
by showing the fidelity of the pictures thus recon- 
structed. 

For example, a young girl of eighteen is progres- 
sively carried back; she passes always through the 
same phases ; then slowly, by the same ways, she is 
returned to her real age before being awakened. At 
seven years of age she is going to school and is only 
beginning to write; at five years she can no longer 
read, and carried back to the cradle, she sucks. We 
can even go beyond, and the subject takes the posi- 
tion of the foetus in its mother's womb. 

With an orphan, who had been reared in Beyrout 
and whose father had been an engineer in the Orient, 
M. de Rochas attempted regression. At ten years 
of age she thought herself in Marseilles, where she 
had indeed been at that age, and M. de Rochas was 
unaware of this. At eight she was in Beyrout and 
spoke of her father and friends who came to the 
house. Asked how "good morning" is said in Turk- 
ish, she answered, "Salamalec," a word which in her 
waking state she had forgotten. At two years she 
was at Cuges in Provence, which was correct ; at one 
year she could no longer speak and replied by signs 
of the head. 



58 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

But here is where the operation becomes curious. 
In order to obtain these regressive states, M. de 
Rochas made longitudinal passes over his subject; 
and to recall her, transversal passes. In the course 
of these experiments, he perceived that if he con- 
tinued the transversal passes, the subject would go 
beyond her actual age — in other words, was able 
to see herself in time to come. Here we must beware 
of the somnambulistic dream, the tendency which a 
subject always has to satisfy her observer, and the 
possibility of a change of personality ; the pictures 
thus obtained are rarely correct. However, in 1904, 
a subject who had been urged into the future, gave 
a successful result. 

I cite textually the case of Eugenie. 1 

Thus I made her grow older, little by little; at 
thirty-seven years of age ( she was then really thirty- 
five) she manifested all the symptoms of child birth 
and the shame of this event, because she was not re- 
married. This was to take place in 1906. Several 
months afterward she seemed to be drowning her- 
self. I caused her to grow older by two years — new 
symptoms of birth. I asked her where she was at 
that time, and she answered, "Upon the water." This 
strange reply caused me to suppose that she was 
wandering, and I brought her back to her normal 
state. 

Everything that she had predicted came true. She 
took for her lover a glove-maker, by whom she had 
a child in 1906. Shortly afterward, grown despon- 
dent, she threw herself into the Isere and was saved 
by being seized by the leg. Finally, in January, 
1909, another child was born, upon a bridge of the 

i Les Vies successives, by Albert de Rochas, Chacorne, 1911, 
p. 96. 



PREVIOUS LIVES 59 

Isere, where she was taken suddenly with the birth- 
pangs in returning from her work. 

This is a curious fact and should be recorded, 
though there must be many added before we can 
pronounce upon it. The cases of regression are 
more interesting and we will return to them. 

It is, indeed, strange, but every subject describes 
in identically the same manner his or her going back 
to the past. They are transported back to six 
months of age, two months, into the body of the 
mother, where they take the position of the foetus; 
the regression is continued and they are in space. 
A brief lethargy and we are present at a new scene, 
the death of an old person. It is the beginning of 
the life which preceded the present incarnation, man- 
ifesting itself backwards, and continuing back to a 
still older incarnation. 

We will consider only the moment of birth; 
whether the subject be educated or not, the vision 
is always the same. First, before birth, the subject 
sees himself in space in the form of a ball, or as a 
slightly luminous mist, wandering about the organs 
of the mother; each sees, in the mother's womb, the 
body in which he is to be incarnated. Thus con- 
ception precedes the taking possession of the foetus 
by the spiritual body, which enters little by little — 
"by puffs," as one subject said — into the tiny body. 
Until then the subject sees himself as though he were 
placed upon the outside. 

Another subject, Josephine, depicts herself thus 
surrounding the body of her mother, only entering 
rather late, and little by little, into the child's body. 
All agree that the complete incorporation occurs at 
about seven years of age. 



60 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

This is in accord with the lucid descriptions of 
the "sensitives," who also see the astral bodies of the 
dying leave their physical bodies, and seemingly float 
above them. 

Mayo, carried back before her birth, said that she 
was nothing, she felt that she existed and that was 
all, but she remembered having had another life. 
When led back to the world, she said that something 
had urged her to be reincarnated, and she had 
descended to her mother, when the latter was already 
pregnant, and had entered her physical body shortly 
before her birth and then but partially. 

As for material concerning former lives, it is 
almost impossible to classify the declarations of the 
subjects, since they contain elements of error and 
truth. But have we the right to be exacting in such 
a matter? If a single existence represented the en- 
tirety of being, we should have the right, in evoking 
this being, to require that a faithful report be given 
us. But when we have several successive existences 
unconnected, since they are separated by death, what 
may be the nature of the unity that obtains outside 
of the time lived? 

WTiat can be the quality and functioning of its 
memory? We cannot know. Interpolation and 
anachronism may legitimately appear as a necessary 
consequence of multiple lives. 
Victor Hugo has said: 1 

"You do not believe in progressive personalities 

(that is, in reincarnations) under the pretext that 

you remember nothing of your previous existences. 

Yet how may vanished centuries remain graven upon 

i Reply of Victor Hugo, related by Arsene Houssaye, and 
cited by de Rochas. 



PREVIOUS LIVES 61 

your memory when you no longer recall the thousand 
and one scenes of your present life? Since 1802, 
there have been ten Victor Hugos within me. Do you 
think that I remember all their deeds and all their 
thoughts ? 

"When I shall have passed the grave to, find 
another light, all these Victor Hugos will be in some 
degree strangers, but it will always be the same soul." 

Hence if the subject, in a hypnotic state, finds 
anew memories forgotten in his present life, it is 
because the soul, forever linked to its physiological 
state, finds therein the functional elements of mem- 
ory; but the former personalities are perforce non- 
existent, and of them only fragmentary recollections 
remain. 

An exceedingly interesting case is that of Mme. 
H., observed by M. Bouvier, whom Colonel de Rochas 
had told of his experiments. I can give here only 
a superficial idea of this case, in a resume necessarily 
too brief. 1 

M. Bouvier speaks thus of the first regression of 
his subject, who has just reached the moment of 
birth: 

"Before conception, when the spirit is yet in space, 
she makes an effort to escape from the invincible 
force which seems to draw her; then, always going 
back in time, she gives replies about what she is doing, 
what her mode of existence is, until she takes up 
again the body which she had formerly quitted, to 
return to a new life. But strangely enough, each 
time that I caused her to enter her mother's womb, 
she passed through the same phase, characterized by 
the same attitude." 2 

i The Report occupies 38 pages. 

2 A. de Rochas, Les Vies successives, p. 173. 



62 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

I must call attention, in passing, to the constancy 
of the process of incarnation, whoever may be the 
hypnotized subject. 

Mme. J. was thirty-nine years old. They tried 
through her to push the experiment to its utmost 
limit, to cause her to go back as far as possible 
in time. [Thus they went back to her twelfth exist- 
ence. 

From her first regression — second life — she indi- 
cates proper names which have not been found, in 
places whose description is nevertheless correct. 
Thus, at fifteen years of age, she has just left the 
class of the Dames Trinitaires in the Rue de la 
Gargouille in Briancon. A note by M. de Rochas 
indicates that there was indeed a school for little 
girls kept by the Dames Trinitaires on the Rue de 
la Gargouille in that city. But the father of Mme. 
J. was born in Briancon, he left the city when he 
was very young; Mme. J. was born long after in a 
town of Isere, her mother had never lived in Brian- 
con, nor had her husband, an army officer, ever been 
stationed there. 

Third Life. — Still in Briancon, at ten years, she 
gave the date 1748. 

Fourth Life.— In 1702, at Ploermel. 

Fifth Life. — The subject is a soldier; as in all 
the other lives it is pictures that are presented in 
the turning back of the course of time; the death 
scene is shown first. He dies from a lance thrust. 

Q. Where did you receive this blow and in what 
year? A. At Marignan, in 1515. (Poor Berry, 
you are done for!) 

Q. With whom were you? A. With Francis. 



PREVIOUS LIVES 63 

Q. What Francis? A. The father, our Lord and 
Master, forsooth, the King of France. 

Q. What is your name? A. Michael Berry. 

Q. Against whom are you fighting? A. Against 
these Swiss swine, etc. 

Sixth Life. — It is the year 1302. She is a young 
governess; only eighteen, she is with the Countess 
de Guise. 

Q. Who is the King? A. I do not know, they say 
he is Philippe le Bel. 

Seventh Life. — It is 1010; at eighty-seven, she is 
an Abbess; at seventy-seven, she believes that the 
world is coming to an end. 

Q. Do you know who is the king? A. Robert II. 
At seventy. Q. Who is the King? A. Capet. At 
sixty, the same request. A. It is Capet. At forty- 
five. A. It is Louis IV. At thirty-five. Q. Who is the 
King? A. Louis IV, for several years past. They 
say he is ugly, fat and bloated, but I have not seen 
him. At twenty-four years. Q. What is the date? 
A. 947. Q. Who is the King? A. Louis IV. At fif- 
teen — same question. A. Louis IV. 

Eighth Life. — Chief of the Frankish warriors. 
He had been taken by Attila at Chalons-sur-Marne, 
and the Huns had burned out his eyes. 

Q. Are there other chiefs over you? A. There 
is the chief tribune Massoee. Q. And over him? 
A. The chief of the Chiefs, Merovceus. 

Q. What year is it? A. 449. 

Q. Do you know God? A. There is some one 
above, — it is Theos. 

Q. How do you worship him? A. Men are of- 
iered up as a burnt offering — it is very beautiful. 



64 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

Ninth Life. — He is a guard of the Emperor 
Probus. 

Q. What country are you in? A. At Romulus. 
Q. What year is it? A. 279. * At twenty-five 
Q. What are you doing? A. I am at Tourino, with 
my wife. Q. Who united you? A. The praetor. 

Tenth Life. — She is a woman called Irisee. She 
wishes to enter the service of the Gods and waits 
upon the priest Ali. 

Q. In what country are you? In Imondo. 

Q. What year is it? A. Ali says that we should 
not seek to find out ; the Gods know. 

Eleventh Life. — An unimportant child, dead at 
eight. 

This regression toward past ages is certainly 
curious and there is a mystery about it which has 
not yet been elucidated; but the hypothesis of a 
momentary revival of the memories of a mind freed 
from the body is surely the least improbable of the 
hypotheses so far formulated. 

It is to be regretted that this h}^pothesis has not 
been more often considered as a pivot for observa- 
tion. Note, for example, what great interest there 
would have been in submitting Miss Beauchamp's 
case to the experiment of regression. 

We feel the same regret upon the subject of the 

medium observed by Professor Flournoy, Helen 

Smith. The case of this medium would have been 

interesting in a very different way had it been 

studied upon the hypothesis of previous lives. 

i We think it well to recall the chronology here. — Francis 
I, 1515-1547— Philippe le Bel, 1478-1506.— Robert II, 996-1031 
— Hugues Capet, 978-996.— Louis le Gros, 936-954.— Merovoeus, 
448-458.— Attila, 434-453. Probus Emperor from 276-282. 



PREVIOUS LIVES 65 

In the case of Helen Smith there are very strange 
peculiarities, which seem incapable of explanation 
except on the ground of fragments of personal re- 
collections from previous lives, fragments that rise 
from the memory of the subject, put into a state of 
lucid somnambulism. 

It is in this spirit that I wish to reconsider the 
work of M. Flournoy, 1 whose study, well known to 
all psychologists, has been favorably received in 
scientific circles. 

The author writes in a spirit contrary to our 
interpretations, which is a guarantee to us that we 
may accept the facts which he himself could not 
easily admit. Only, M. Flournoy presents his theory 
first, his facts afterwards, and then makes his facts 
fit his theory. He declares himself hostile to any 
interpretation which infers the intervention of a 
foreign influence. At the mere thought of this, he 
says, he feels a nervous amusement, which sets him 
laughing. As for table-tipping, he states with a 
certain cynicism, "Whether objects do or do not 
move is vastly indifferent to me." (p. 357.) 

It is the salient characteristic of M. Flournoy 
that he attaches slight importance to the phenome- 
non itself, analyzing only its content; the faculty of 
creating instantly an imaginary language does not 
hold his attention. He demonstrates, and with rea- 
son, that this language is not authentic. Neverthe- 
less, it remains to be explained how operations of 
great complexity can be produced without a con- 
scious action. We know that we must beware of 
the names with which mediumistic personalities en- 

i From the Indies to the Planet Mars, by Th. Flournoy, 
Alcan, 1910. 



66 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

dow themselves to meet the demands of curious per- 
sons ; generally they accept the first that is proposed 
to them. We do not know the personalities of the 
Beyond, and when we are concerned with a serious 
manifestant who is connected with important experi- 
ments, it must adopt a name. 

Miss Smith's familiar spirit answered to the name 
of Leopold, and later accepted the personality of 
Cagliostro, who, we believe, was suggested to him. 

In the case of Miss Beauchamp, Sally was a hostile 
and malevolent spirit. Leopold, on the contrary, 
is a guardian spirit; but the physical process of 
apparent possession is always the same — difficulty 
in adapting the foreign influence to the organs of 
the medium. When Leopold wished to write, there 
was a struggle of twenty minutes, during which 
Helen resisted with all her strength; but in vain. 
Leopold snatched the pen from her, twisted and hurt 
her arm, until Helen, vanquished, wept and obeyed. 
Miss Smith, accustomed to hold her pen with the 
middle finger, was obliged to write with the index 
finger. Moreover, she produced an orthography 
different from her own, not only as to penmanship, 
much larger and more regular, but also as to spell- 
ing, which was of the last century. Leopold did not 
fail once to write "j'aurois" for "j'aurais" and to 
use archaic terms. If, for instance, he named the 
streets of Geneva, it was under their old names. 

The same struggle would begin for control of the 
vocal organs; it was not until a year after the first 
attempt that he succeeded in speaking freely. Here 
again there is a likeness with the case of Sally, who 
stammered terribly at the beginning. Helen suf- 
fered actually in her mouth and throat; then began 



PREVIOUS LIVES 67 

to speak, with an Italian accent, in a deep and hol- 
low voice, wholly unlike the usual sweet tone of her 
pretty feminine voice. And it was not the voice 
alone that changed; archaism appeared in speech 
as it had in writing; the vocabulary was studded 
with obsolete words — "phial" instead of "bottle," 
etc. Yet Leopold never forgot that he was Italian, 
and pronounced U like ou, and never used the new 
word, saying omnibus for tramway, etc., and all of 
this in a strong bass voice, very masculine and as 
Italian as possible. (From the Indies, p. 110.) 

For D. Flournoy this is but a well-played role; 
the person is but a modification of Helen — a case 
of auto-hypnotism. Flournoy swallows the obstacle. 
Auto-hypnotism can be only the act of a self-cog- 
nizant will ; it is the usual mode of action exerted upon 
oneself or upon the motor centers, if so be they are 
considered as distinct from the ego. Auto-hypnotism 
would in this case be a reverse action ; the ego wishes 
to write in one manner, the hand in another, and 
the hand triumphs over the subject. It is the organic 
periphery attacking the brain and imposing its 
movements upon it, a way in which automatism does 
not function. 

Still a word concerning Leopold: he possesses 
complete independence, and when he announces to 
the mesmerist that he is the master, suggestion can 
change nothing. 

I have presented the personality of Leopold be- 
cause he is of a general type. All mediums have 
thus a familiar spirit which intervenes in phenomena. 
But I am not concerned with this role and pass on 
to facts of regression. 

The phenomenal condition of Miss Smith tends to 



68 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

reconstruct two fragments of her past lives. The 
medium, or her guide, attributes to Marie Antoinette 
the most recent reminiscences, and the other incarna- 
tion, whose very incomplete fragments reappear in- 
termittently, carries us back to a much more distant 
period, to the 15th Century, in India, when the sub- 
ject was incarnated as a Hindu Princess. 

For M. Flournoy, these facts are psychic neo- 
plasms ; he states this in the beginning : 

"In pathology," he says, "neoplasms have for 
their point of departure certain cells remaining em- 
bryonic which suddenly become prolific by differen- 
tiation. Similarly, in psychology, it seems that 
certain remote and primitive elements of the indi- 
vidual, strata of infancy, still endowed with plasti- 
city and mobility, are peculiarly fitted to engender 
these strange subconscious growths, a sort of 
psychic tumors or excrescences, that we call second 
personalities." 

Is it necessary to assert that such an analogy is 
fantastic? The pathological neoplasm does not de- 
velop; it remains a monstrosity of a lower order. 
The second personality, upon the contrary, has per- 
ceptive faculties superior to those of the intelligent 
being of whom it is but a fraction. And then, to be 
precise, M. Flournoy should not have rested upon 
the vague terms of psychology. These neoplasms 
which detach themselves from the principal person- 
ality cannot detach themselves save as they borrow 
an organ in order to manifest themselves. Each suc- 
cessive personality must thus be represented, in the 
time in which it acts, by bundles of motive and 
sensitive fibers; these neoplasms, absolutely foreign 



PREVIOUS LIVES 69 

to the principal being, must have their localization 
somewhere. The author realized this and wrote: 

"It should be agreed upon, once for all, that this 
cerebral mechanism is always understood; but one 
should never speak of it so long as there is nothing 
definite to be said concerning it." 

On the contrary, we should speak of it, in order 
to understand how grotesque, as applied to the given 
facts, such a localization would become. I should 
like to be shown, even by hypothesis, the different 
places that would be occupied in the organism by 
several intelligences, writing the same hand without 
mingling their memories nor their writing, without 
confusing their roles, each of which requires a special 
spelling and a different speech; finally, without 
tangling the skein of the complex creations whose 
memories they hold since they take up the thread 
without ever severing its connection. 

Flournoy tells us of the delicacy of choice, of the 
refined sensibility, the consummate though instinctive 
art, which guide the selection and storing of sub- 
conscious memories. I should greatly like to see 
the substratum of these things and know what was 
the primitive core of these formations. . . . What 
happy dilation of our spleen ! if once you begin trans- 
lating into physiological language. I should like to 
have some one tell me about the consummate art 
of a spinal ganglion, employing all its skill against 
the finesse of the glosso-pharyngeal, which would be 
the dupe of the refined sensibility of a solar plexus. 
I should love to see the implacable logic of a quad- 
rigeminal combated by the rhetoric of the medulla 
oblongata. For, seriously, that is what we must 
come to. It is with nonsense of this kind that we 



70 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

should find ourselves confronted did we undertake 
to define the theory of the neoplasm. Scholars 
admit that these things elude positive science. "Ideal 
science," declares Berthelot, "varies ceaselessly and 
will always vary." And the psychologist Myers ex- 
claims in a moment of frankness : "We shall always 
find ourselves at last face to face with the inex- 
plicable, and the most Lamarckian reply is in reality 
as mystic as the most Platonic." 

The truth is that we cannot conceive of the 
presence in us of intelligences superior to our own 
unless we regard man as a concretion of all the 
psychic elements pertaining to his previous lives. 
This, therefore, would constitute the reserve — a 
purely psychic reserve — of all that is sub-conscious 
within us. 

Our individuality is only the partly conscious 
elaboration of a far more extended organism which 
represents the synthesis of all our former person- 
alities in the process of higher integration, which is 
immortality. 

Helen Smith thus revives the fragments of her 
past. In the role of Marie Antoinette, she attains 
remarkable perfection if we may believe M. Flournoy. 

"WTien the royal trance is complete, one should 
see the grace, elegance, distinction, even majesty 
sometimes, which transfigures the pose and gesture 
of Helen. She has truly the carriage of a queen 
(p. 326). . . . The unconstrained movement with 
which she never forgets to fling back her imaginary 
train at every turn; all that which cannot be de- 
scribed is perfect in its naturalness and ease. 

This perfection of acting, which no actress could 
attain without much study, does not stop there. Old 



PREVIOUS LIVES 71 

spelling flows as naturally from her pen: Instans, 
enfants, j'etois, etc., for instant, enfant, j'etais. 
Change of voice also takes place naturally and, 
when in this state, she is unaware of Miss Smith." 

From this it may be seen with what superior quali- 
ties a neoplasm would have to be endowed, while 
an automatic regression towards fragments of the 
past requires no transcendant faculty since, in place 
of a miracle of artfulness and clever lying, a natural 
mechanism suffices similar to the regressions obtained 
by M. Janet with Leonie and Rose, and those ob- 
tained by M. de Rochas. 

If we admit reincarnation, nothing exists but the 
present personality. Marie Antoinette comporting 
herself as the real person might do, is an intangible, 
non-existent thing ; there could never be two persons 
in one. The caterpillar and the butterfly which has 
issued from it cannot exist simultaneously. 

Nevertheless, I am not quite sure that M. Flournoy 
has not attempted to put a check upon this hypo- 
thesis from the fact that he succeeded through the 
medium in attributing the roles of Philippe Egalite, 
and the Marquis de Mirabeau to Messrs. Demole and 
Auguste de Morsier, presented as such. 

All present excitation can receive only a response 
improvised at the moment. Marie Antoinette, be- 
come the Smith girl, is incapable of acting spon- 
taneously as a queen, but Miss Smith is capable of 
regression. The only thing that she can do is to 
set in motion authentic negatives. Her somnam- 
bulistic consciousness may very well make use of 
images of the past to compose Harlequins; but al- 
though the medium possess no historic culture her 
presentments always show probability ; the style and 



72 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

spelling are of the period, the facts and images con- 
form to history. What is more natural than that 
among the effaced images she should revive a family 
scene wherein she sees herself with her three children 
and Madame Elizabeth. This scene calls back the 
memory of an innocent melody, rather archaic and 
true to the period. The song of a mother who rocks 
her baby is among all actions one of those best 
calculated to affect the mechanism of memory. 

These ancient images should have been collected 
with reverent care in order not to strain the delicate 
instrument which has registered them. 

If it had been possible to use the method of M. 
Rochas in this case, one would have begun by asking 
the cooperation of Leopold, sole master of the or- 
ganism of the subject, and persuading him to lend 
his aid, because of the great value of the experiment. 

Then the medium, once hypnotized, instead of 
making a difficult leap into a too remote time, would 
have been led, little by little, to retrace the course 
of her present life; would have reentered the body 
of her mother; and it would have been interesting 
to learn if, in the Beyond, in the spirit state, she 
would have found the same evidences of her former 
lives. 

In place of that, what was done ? Miss Smith was 
made a source of amusement. At the close of a 
seance in which she had embodied the Hindu princess, 
or some one else, they suddenly suggested to her a 
return to the role of Marie Antoinette; for what 
reason? In order to escort the Queen to dinner, 
where they poured bumpers of wine for her, which 
she drained glass after glass, without turning a 
hair; whereas, in her normal state, Miss Smith was 



PREVIOUS LIVES 73 

sobriety itself. Marie Antoinette took coffee . . . 
they made her smoke, etc. How different should be 
the procedure befitting the investigation of a mys- 
tery! Is it true then, as the author affirms, that 
this subject provokes in him only a mild amusement? 
Alas! 

The truth is that for the learned professor there 
was no mystery; he believed sincerely in his theory 
of the pathological neoplasm and experiments con- 
ducted in such a fashion could not militate against 
his theory. 

Thus, no order was observed in the production of 
the phenomena ; and it was not by a series of regres- 
sions, but suddenly, that Miss Smith reentered a far 
distant cycle of existence, returning to an incarna- 
tion which took place in India. 

"Miss Smith," declares Professor Flournoy, "is 
truly most remarkable in her Hindu somnambulism. 
One wonders, with stupefaction, how there comes to 
this girl from the shores of Lake Leman, who is 
without artistic education or special knowledge of 
the Orient, a perfection of technique which the great- 
est actress doubtless could not attain save by pro- 
longed studies or a visit to the banks of the Ganges." 
(From the Indies, p. 272.) 

However it may be, here are the facts: Helen in 
a somnambulistic state plays the role of a Hindu 
princess, Simandini, daughter of an Arab Sheik and 
wife of an Indian prince, Sivrouka Nayaca. This 
prince lived in Kanara and built there in 1401 the 
fortress of Tchandraghiri. At his death Simandini 
was burned alive upon his pyre. 

None of the persons present knew these proper 
names when they were cited; the history of India 



74 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

is obscure and the medium had complete freedom 
of invention. Nevertheless, it was found that 
Kanara was situated in the province of Malabar, 
but no Tchandraghiri was found; or rather, Flour- 
noy discovered three, but they did not correspond 
in situation or date to the medium's story. As for 
the other names, at first undiscoverable, the scholars 
and historians consulted gave up hope of locating 
any clues to them. It was M. Flournoy himself 
who one day stumbled upon an old history of India 
in which he found the following passage: 

"Kanara and the adjacent provinces on the side 
of Delby may be regarded as the Georgia of Hin- 
doustan; it is there, they say, that the most beauti- 
ful women are found of whom the natives are very 
jealous, seldom allowing them to be seen by 
strangers." 

"Tchandragari, whose name means Mountain of 
the Moon, is a vast fortress constructed in 1401 by 
the Rajah Sivrouka Nayaca. This prince, like his 
successors, was of the sect of Djains." (From Gen- 
eral History of Ancient India, by Maries, Paris, 
1828, t. I. pp. 268-269.) 

M. Flournoy finds this document to fall short, 
under the pretext that the guarantee of Maries, as 
an historian, is not of the first order. If the work 
had been good, it would have been more widely known 
and might very probably have been the source of 
a romance imagined by the subliminal consciousness 
of Miss Smith. But the valueless book was buried 
in the deepest oblivion. For M. Flournoy it fails 
as an historical document, which means that we 
must nevertheless seek the source of the romance 
in the book by Maries, but we must guard against 



PREVIOUS LIVES 75 

imagining it to have a basis of truth. However, 
they had not yet found Tchandragari ; it was Mr. 
Barth who filled this lack by finding a Fort 
Tchandraghiri, situated in South Kanara — that is, 
corresponding to the conditions of time and place 
necessary to corroborate the romance. 

As for the impossibility of Miss Smith's having 
been able to study Maries' text, M. Flournoy calls 
that a negative objection. Only two copies of this 
work are known, both hidden in the dust of libraries, 
one in a private association with which no member 
or friend of the Smith family had ever been con- 
nected. The other was in the Public Library, where 
one must have lost his mind in order to consult it 
among the thousands of more interesting and more 
modern books. (From the Indies, ... p. 283.) 
"But," declares the professor, "Extravagance for 
extravagance, I still prefer the hypothesis that only 
requires natural probabilities to that which draws 
upon occult causes." 

Ah ! here is the real word let out. . . . An occult 
cause! But I can assure M. Flournoy that his ex- 
planation of a psychic wart would be an occult 
cause no less than is regression. We see the occult 
in the fact of ancient reminiscences appearing in a 
new organism; yet that is the sole explanation that 
official science is willing to give us concerning certain 
phenomena of a purely biological nature. If you 
accept the theory that physical aptitudes are mani- 
fested in us by reason of ancestral inheritance, I 
see few obstacles to believing that latent memories 
have the same origin. 

Helen denies vigorously that she could have known 
Maries' work and we know what resources hypno- 



76 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

tism offers for the discovery of falsehood. Miss 
Smith elaborated a dream while in the hynotic state 
and it was easy to learn its source. This did not 
escape the professor who spoke of it frankly. 

"It would seem," he declared, "that the simplest 
course would be to profit by the hypnotic state of 
the seances to cause Helen's subconscious memory 
to confess, and lead her to tell her secrets; but my 
trials in this direction have not yet been successful." 

In short, M. Flournoy's explanation is the neo- 
plasm, that is, the fact of a psychic monstrosity, 
of several monstrosities, spontaneously generated, 
whose faculties far surpass the mother-intelligence 
which has given them birth. Indeed, he declares, 
"whatever conscious and reflective work is able to 
accomplish, the subliminal faculties can execute to 
a far higher degree of perfection in subjects pos- 
sessing automatic tendencies." (From the Indies 
... p. 273.) 

Here is in truth the intelligent wart! 

If the book of Maries had been the source of the 
romance, the medium would have borrowed more 
fully; automatic memory being infallible, she would 
have written Tchandragari, as in Maries' ; secondary 
elements, such as the residence of Mangalore, are 
not cited in the book. But what the medium could 
not have borrowed therefrom is the knowledge of 
Sanscrit. Helen spoke a Sanscrit that was, indeed, 
imperfect but that carried an extraordinary stamp 
of truth. 

M. Flournoy seized upon this imperfection, but 
perhaps it is excessive to ask that a somnambulistic 
memory, having passed the threshold of death, 
should remain unaltered. With the same exaction 



PREVIOUS LIVES 77 

one might modify the Darwinian theory as applied 
to man, defying Darwin, or rather Huxley, to bring 
to light his anthropological recollections. That 
which may remain in the subconsciousness of the 
medium cannot be but a ruin, a distant trace. The 
Sanscrit language of Helen is only a jargon, and 
must be so of necessity. 

It seems, moreover, that the text submitted to 
the Orientalists may have been gathered by ear and 
written, I think, under the dictation of an English- 
man who did not know the language. Be that as 
it may, and despite everything, there are some 
authentic words; sometimes Helen writes, and Leo- 
pold translates, a phrase — although, as he declares, 
he does not know Sanscrit. But he deciphers the 
thought of Helen to whom it comes intuitively in a 
state of trance. An Orientalist, M. deSaussure, was 
asked to examine the text, thus interpreted, and 
discovered several fragments having quite the sense 
indicated by Leopold. There were barbarisms, but 
some words were recognized as being wholly correct. 

In short, these are remnants of Sanscrit, among 
which some intelligible words nevertheless preserve 
their character. Thus the vowel a abounds, because 
the proportion of a's in Sanscrit as compared with 
French, is 4 to 1. The consonant f never appears, 
although so frequent in French, because it is foreign 
to Sanscrit. Is that not truly remarkable? 

The Hindu princess, if she really existed, has no 
longer any special individuality. She is only a young 
Swiss girl who, by a phenomenon of hypnotic re- 
gression, finds again fragments of ancient impres- 
sions among which some words, incompletely effaced 
from the memory, reappear mechanically. 



78 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

But if Helen does not give to this language a 
clear reconstruction, its elements, at least, are cor- 
rect. It is a structure in ruins, of which there 
remain a few bricks, or fragments of sculpture that 
do not belie the style of their period. 

On the 6th of March, 1885, our medium welcomes 
the professor with a Hindu salutation: Atieyd 
Ganapatinamd — this form of address to the name 
of the elephant-headed god, which in the Hindu 
Pantheon symbolizes science and wisdom, is an in- 
telligent greeting addressed particularly to the pro- 
fessor and scholar, but M. Flournoy is pitiless. 
"No conjecture," he states, "is too trivial or foolish 
when it is a question of phenomena which are essen- 
tially of the dream order." 1 

And here is the explanation. Since when one 
sneezes, a "God bless you" is said, the author relates 
the word atieya to the imitative sound "atiou" 
which, according to him, children use to imitate 
sneezing. If I understand rightly, this would mean 
that Helen's somnambulistic consciousness, before 
exclaiming "God bless you !" was struck by the idea 
of sneezing; this association of ideas would have 
brought the word atieya, and fortune aiding, the 
rest came of itself. What exegesis, good heavens, 
what exegesis! 

As for the other fragments, the professor awaits 
their explanation from some happy chance, like that 
which caused him to find Maries' text, which he 
persists in considering as the original source of 
the dream. 

The imitation of the person depicted attains an 

i Once more the affirmation precedes the examination of the 
fact. 



PREVIOUS LIVES - 79 

astonishing force of expression, but this is the in- 
herent characteristic of every hypnotic state. Only, 
these states, always unknown to the principal con- 
sciousness, are ordinarily incapable of producing 
that which has never been part of the subject. 

We cannot believe in the subconscious formation 
of a language which contains certain elements of 
truth, and whose origin hypnotic sleep refuses to 
disclose. Miss Smith, although very intelligent, 
possessed no linguistic abilities. She always dis- 
liked the study of languages and rebelled against 
German, which her father spoke fluently, and in 
which she was forced to take lessons for three years. 
Therefore, if these famous psychic excrescences swell 
only through elements brought in since childhood, 
it would be fragments of German which would be 
manifested in her vocabulary. 

But let us not forget, this subject has never been 
studied from the point of view of regression — the 
preconceived hypothesis being always that of the 
psychic neoplasm, and this hypothesis serving as a 
pivot for the investigators. Nor did they guard 
against confusion; hypnotic states present many 
phases and degrees and they were not always careful 
to put the medium in the profound state necessary 
to the reconstruction of the more distant images. 
If they suggested the Hindu dream at an inoppor- 
tune moment, for example, when Miss Smith was 
in a state of superficial somnambulism, or when she 
had just manifested oneirocritic creations, it is evi- 
dent that the results would be distorted. Former 
lives do not revive themselves in order to overwhelm 
us with their proof; it is for ingenious observers to 
discover them by subtler means. 



80 PROOFS OP THE SPIRIT WORLD 

As I said in reference to Miss Beauchamp, it 
requires great temerity to break this ancient phi- 
losophic conception of the unity of the ego in order 
to admit spontaneous creations which have no sup- 
port. Auto-hypnotism, hyperamnesia are only 
words; unconscious cerebration implies two contra- 
dictory terms — subliminal creations generated with- 
out the aid of the ego . . . teleological hallucina- 
tions; that is, illusions tending toward a real end, 
subconscious strata . . . infantile strata . . . neo- 
plasms . . . excresences . . . psychic warts . . . vain 
hypotheses. 

These are fatherless children whose power sur- 
passes human faculties; there would be no longer 
one consciousness, but four, five or six centers of 
subconsciousnes, which would play as complex a 
farce, each having its own manner of seeing, writing, 
speaking, of crossing the tfs or pronouncing the w's, 
without ever becoming confused, or omitting the 
archaic forms of the past century, without forget- 
ting the nationality of the figurant or his accent 
or spelling. Strange to say, these factitious beings 
would elude hypnotic suggestion ; they take the reins 
from the mesmerist and it is they themselves who 
hypnotize the subject, rectifying by means of 
auditory suggestions the error of the subject when 
he has wrongly interpreted a visual suggestion. A 
human intelligence is incapable of managing so many 
impostures at once. 

To the activity of these factitious personalities 
one would have to add many phenomena of recog- 
nized lucidity, valuable interventions and exact pre- 
visions. Thus one must needs divide phenomena into 
two parts: one, in the domain of facts that may be 



PREVIOUS LIVES 81 

verified, would be sincere and truthful; and under 
subliminal impostures would be classed the same in- 
fluence when they were exercised in the doubtful 
domain. 

All this would be done with the avowed determina- 
tion not to believe in manifestations, nor in the ac- 
tion of the past upon our psychic sphere, nor in the 
action upon our nervous system of an invisible 
hypnotist. 

Before imposing upon us this belief in neoplasms 
of genius, it would have been well to show us some 
evidence of this ego cut in pieces to prove that 
Leopold is a division of Helen, and that he, divided 
in turn, produces the new personalities that come 
out one from another, like the sections of a tele- 
scope ! 

Where have these spontaneous generations ac- 
quired learning? How have they knowledge of 
idioms? For the proof new hypotheses are de- 
manded; there is not even a justification of this 
physiology of the soul which allows a division 
wherein each part would be greater than the whole. 

Spiritualism, in default of absolute proofs, pre- 
sents, at least, an explaining hypothesis. And this 
explanation becomes simple and normal when we 
admit the relations of the soul to its past. 



CHAPTER V 

THE ESTABLISHED FACT 

"I never said it was possible, I only said it was 
true." 

William Crookes. 

Science, unwilling to recognize anything outside 
of matter, denies the possibility of any physical 
manifestation without contact, as if visibility were 
the essential condition of materiality. These are 
the manifestations which have been scorned, which 
are still unrecognized or admitted only to be denied 
all importance. 

Every new idea passes through three successive 
phases. At first men mock and combat, later the 
idea becomes self-evident; and finally men claim we 
are forcing doors that are already open. This is 
the history of table-tipping, automatic writing, 
haunted houses, and extra-physiological formations 
of strange shapes and human members. 

These are facts which, however absurd they may 
seem, nevertheless exist. 

In 1854, Count Agenor de Gasparin published a 
large work, in two volumes, upon turning-tables 
which he had studied from a strictly scientific point 
of view. His aim had been to demonstrate that 
table-tipping was a purely physical manifestation, 
and he had the simplicity to believe that because 
his demonstration had been made, it would remain 

82 



THE ESTABLISHED FACT 83 

uncontested. Alas ! other demonstrations followed, 
and other experimenters showed the same simplicity. 
This has continued for sixty years. 

Gasparin placed three trays upon his table, the 
last being filled with stones ; the table thus weighted, 
rose upon the desired side. 

Certain scholars, witnessing the experiment, ex- 
pressed the theory of unconscious pressure! They 
agreed, therefore, that if flour were spread upon 
the table and no trace of finger prints remained 
after the lifting, no further objection would be pos- 
sible. This experiment was tried again and again 
with complete success. 

M. Marc Thury, a professor of physics and 
astronomy at the University of Geneva, strove in 
his turn to throw a new light upon these feats of 
lifting without contact. He operated in such a way 
as to obtain this movement under conditions where 
the mechanical action of fingers would have been 
impossible. In his presence, a child raised a piano 
weighing 400 pounds, and as this movement was 
explained as the result of action of the knees, the 
child repeated the phenomenon, kneeling upon a 
stool and playing on the piano in this position. 

The conclusions drawn by Thury were: 

1. That a fluid is produced by the brain and is 
set free along the nerves. 

2. That this fluid may go beyond the limits of 
the human body. 

3. That it obeys will-power. 
Thury wrote upon this subject: 

"The task of Science is to bear witness to the 
truth. It cannot do this if it borrows a part of its 
data from revelation or tradition, for that is a beg*- 



84 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

ging of the question and so the testimony of Science 
becomes void. 

"Natural facts fall into two categories of forces, 
the one necessary, the other free. In the first cate- 
gory belong the general forces of gravity, heat, 
light, electricity and growth. It is possible that 
others may be discovered one day, but at present 
these are the only ones that we know. To the second 
category of forces belongs the soul both of animals 
and the soul of man; these are indeed forces, for 
they cause movements and varied phenomena in the 
physical world." 

Thus the work of two experimenters contained 
already, in germ, this affirmation of something mate- 
rial, indeterminate, fluidic, in connection with the 
soul force, acting outside the human body and 
obedient to its will. 

Later, to put this fact beyond all dispute, regis- 
tering apparatus was constructed. Robert Hare, 
chemist at Harvard University, was the first to 
employ this method. 

In 1869, the Dialectic Society of London resolved 
upon an investigation and formed a committee that 
held fifty seances. In the course of these, important 
testimony, much of which came from high authori- 
ties, was registered. 

[The sub-committee No. 1 wrote: 1 

"Your committee has avoided employing profes- 
sional or salaried mediums. The only mediumship 
was that of its members, all of good social position 
and strictest integrity. 

"Your committee has limited its report to facts 

i Report upon Spiritism. 



THE ESTABLISHED FACT 85 

observed by its assembled members ; these facts were 
perceptible to the senses and possessed a reality 
susceptible of indisputable proof. 1 

"Four-fifths of your sub-committee, at the outset 
of the experiments, were skeptical concerning the 
reality of the above-mentioned phenomena. They 
were convinced that these phenomena were the re- 
sult either of imposture, illusion, or unconscious 
muscular action. It was only in the face of over- 
whelming evidence, under conditions that excluded 
all possibility of these solutions, and after repeated 
experiments and proofs, that the most skeptical 
were convinced, little by little, despite themselves, 
that the phenomena observed in the course of their 
long investigation were incontestable facts. 

"These manifestations occurred so often, under so 
many and such diverse conditions, surrounded by 
so many precautions against error or illusion, and 
gave such invariable results, that the members of 
your subcommittee who followed the experiments, 
although the majority had begun in absolute skepti- 
cism, became fully convinced that a force exists 
capable of moving heavy bodies without material 
contact, and that this force depends, in a manner 
still unknown, upon the presence of human beings." 

Here we have to deal with a definite conclusion. 
Each time that men have seriously studied the mat- 
ter in good faith, they have rendered a similar 
verdict. However, it will always be impossible to 
overcome preconceived opinion; those who had been 
inclined to accept this decision, refused it, because 
it was contrary to their expectations. They in- 
i Underlined in the report of the Committee. 



86 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

sisted that a verdict of this nature should be con- 
firmed by a decisive authority. 

This was the cause and origin of the researches 
undertaken by Sir William Crookes. This time it 
was the complete routing of the skeptics. They had 
declared in advance their willingness to accept the 
conclusions of William Crookes. But they con- 
tinued to discuss, giving proof of ignorance and bad 
faith. "From all appearance," wrote Camille Flam- 
marion upon this subject, "they approved the en- 
trance of this ingenious chemist into these occult 
and heretical researches, only with the idea that he 
would demonstrate the falsity of these prodigies." 

In 1888, appeared an Italian medium, Eusapia 
Paladino, whose life was almost entirely devoted to 
scientific experimentation. All the scholars of 
Europe examined her, one by one, and all bore wit- 
ness to the reality of the facts. This time stress 
was laid upon a multitude of objective proofs, ob- 
tained by means of registering apparatus, and 
photographic evidence. Thus we have permanent 
proofs, visible to all, of table-tipping or the lifting 
of objects, taken at the moment of their rising, and 
attesting that at this moment there was no contact. 

In 1896, Colonel de Rochas wrote his fine book 
upon the outward manifestation of motivity, an in- 
destructible monument which established the definite 
proof and gave the records of the different controls 
exerted upon Eusapia up to the year 1896. 

In 1898, M. Guillaume de Fontenay wrote a book 

upon the same subject, relating only the seances at 

which he had been present with the Blech family 

and Camille Flammarion. 1 

i A Propos Eusapia Paladino (concerning Eusapia Pala- 
fiino), by Guillaume de Fontenay, Paris, 1898. 



THE ESTABLISHED FACT 87 

Flammarion himself organized in 1898, in his 
home on the Avenue de l'Observatoire, a series of 
seances, at which were present, among others, 
Arthur Levy, Victorien Sardou, Gustave le Bon, and 
M. and Mme. Ad. Brisson. At each seance, Eusapia 
was undressed and reclothed before two ladies ap- 
pointed to ascertain that she concealed nothing be- 
neath her garments. I shall not speak of the 
marvelous occurrences witnessed there, but shall con- 
cern myself solely with the fact of movement with- 
out contact. We have on this subject the confession 
of the scholarly astronomer who, after giving the 
events of these seances, wrote the following lines : 

"The levitation of a table, for example, and its 
complete detachment from the floor under the action 
of an unknown force contrary to weight, is a fact 
which can no longer be reasonably contested." 

As for the other far more remarkable phenomena, 
Camille Flammarion has seen them under conditions 
where verification was entirely possible. But, re- 
strained by prudence, he is content to write: "To 
be sure of such enormities, we must be a hundred 
times sure, not having seen them once, but one hun- 
dred times, as, for example, levitations." 

This then has been achieved. Levitation of tables 
without contact is henceforth beyond doubt, and 
should be affirmed without reserve. It has been 
witnessed, not once, but a hundred times ; not by a 
few but by a great number. 

Let us recall the principal witnesses by citing some 
extracts from their testimony: 

William Crookes. — "There are many examples of 
heavy bodies such as tables, chairs, sofas, etc., hav- 



88 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

ing been set in motion without the contact of the 
medium. I will mention briefly certain of the more 
striking instances. A chair in which I was seated 
partly described a circle while my feet were clear 
of the floor. On one occasion a chair moved slowly 
from a far corner of the room. This was visible 
to all those present. Another time an armchair 
came to the spot where we were seated and, at my 
request, returned slowly away to a distance of about 
•three feet. During three consecutive evenings, a 
small table moved freely across the room, under 
conditions which I had expressly prepared before- 
hand, in order to brush aside all objections which 
might be raised to the genuineness of the occurrence. 
"On five different occasions, a heavy dining-room 
table rose from several inches to a foot and a half 
above the floor, under specially arranged conditions 
which rendered fraud impossible. At another time 
a heavy table rose above the floor in full light, while 
I held the hands and feet of the medium." 

Sir Alfred Russel Wallace. — "I was so complete 
and confirmed a materialist that at this time I could 
not find room in my thought for the conception of 
a spiritual existence, nor for the existence of any 
other function whatever in the universe, save matter 
and force. Facts, however, are stubborn things. My 
curiosity was first aroused by certain minor but 
inexplicable phenomena observed in the family of a 
friend, and my desire for knowledge and my love of 
truth stirred me to pursue the investigation. Facts 
became more and more manifest, more and more 
varied, and farther and farther from all the teach- 
ings of modern science and from all that con- 
temporary philosophy discussed. They conquered me, 
they forced me to accept them as facts, long before 
I could admit the spiritualistic explanation. For 



THE ESTABLISHED FACT 89 

there was then in my system of thought no place 
in which this could be entertained. By slow degrees 
a place was made." 

The same author wrote in his notes: 

"These experiments have persuaded me that there 
is an unknown power which emanates from the bodies 
of a group of persons placed in conjunction by their 
position about a round table with all their hands 
upon it." 

Cesar Lombroso. — "Until now (1890), I have 
been the most relentless foe of spiritism. To all who 
urged me to examine this order of phenomena, I 
replied: 'Merely to speak of a spirit that animates 
tables and chairs is simply ridiculous ; the mani- 
festation of forces without matter is quite as in- 
conceivable as functional activity without organs. 
. . .' I acquired the conviction that spirit phe- 
nomena are explained for the greater part by forces 
inherent in the medium, and also, in part, by the 
intervention of super-terrestrial beings who possess 
powers of which the properties of radium may give 
an analogous idea. The solution of this problem 
will be one of the most far-reaching events of the 
New Century." 

A. de Rochas. — "The refusal to believe in affirma- 
tions so numerous, unequivocal and precise, renders 
impossible the establishment of any physical science, 
for the student is not likely to have an opportunity 
to witness all the facts taught him, observation of 
which is often difficult." 

Ochorowicz. — "The hypothesis of a fluidic double 
(astral body) which, under certain conditions, de- 



90 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

taches itself from the body of the medium, seems 
necessary for the explanation of the majority of 
phenomena. According to this conception, the 
movement of objects without contact would be pro- 
duced by the fluidic members of the medium." 

Morselli. — "Yes ! These phenomena, the accept- 
ance of which seemed to me at first to be due to 
deception or naivete, fraud or the illusion of the 
senses either in good faith or obstinacy, are in very 
large number authentic and certain; as for the few 
upon which I am not yet satisfied, they infringe in 
no wise upon the existence of an extraordinary or 
preternatural category of facts, dependent upon 
special organisms endowed with the faculty of mak- 
ing manifest images and wishes." 

Pio Fioa. — "Now that we are persuaded that the 
phenomena are authentic, we feel also a desire to 
declare it publicly and to proclaim that the rare 
pioneers in this branch of biology, destined to be- 
come one of the most important, see and observe, 
in general, with exactitude." 

And now, being shown the conclusions of these 
modern scholars who have seriously studied the 
facts, one may wonder why there are still the in- 
credulous. Why do certain persons who believe in 
wireless telegraphy, liquid air, and other phenomena 
they have never seen, of which they have not the 
slightest proof, and which they admit simply be- 
cause they have heard of them, refuse to admit 
another phenomenon which has resisted sixty years 
of polemics, has been subjected to every test and 
every scientific investigation? 

This is the question put by the learned neurolo- 



THE ESTABLISHED FACT 91 

gist of the University of Genoa. Having thus re- 
ferred to his unbelief, he asserts anew: 

"To-day, fortified with a sufficient experience, 
after long and mature reflection upon what I have 
seen and touched with my hands, after unrelaxed 
study of the question of mediumship during many 
years, I have changed my opinion." 

In brief, here is the testimony of Morselli, upon 
that fact of special interest to us: 

"The autonomous lifting of a table is the favorite 
subject for photography. In broad daylight, we 
have seen a table rise to the height of our heads 
while we were standing in the middle of a room. 
We have also witnessed minuets of the table, with 
the gas brightly lighted and while the medium was 
enclosed within a cabinet." 

Finally, it is also important to cite the conclu- 
sion of Dr. Pio Fioa, professor of anatomy at the 
University of Turin, a conclusion which is infinitely 
valuable to us. 

"One must conclude from these facts that the 
nervous system of the medium is in touch with cur- 
rents which reach her from outside, and that cur- 
rents leaving her nervous system proceed from her. 
These are sensitive and motive currents, not auto- 
matic, differing from those we know, and prolonged 
outside the organism for a certain distance, like the 
rays of a form of energy not yet known." 

We ourselves declare that these conclusions are 
equivalent to the recognition of an unknown psychic 



92 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

organ; to us it appears to be the old Perisprit, 
known to the spiritists for sixty years and to the 
Egyptians more than six thousand years before our 
Christian era. 

It is necessary to emphasize these scholarly wit- 
nesses, these testimonies ceaselessly renewed and 
these beginnings of scientific theories, because they 
are the very things of which the j ournals never make 
mention. 

According to these journals the essence and basis 
of the spiritualistic movement is always either ex- 
ploitation or weak-mindedness. The public is always 
ignorant of the serious foundation of the monument 
which is being raised, and it is even not rare to hear 
it said: "Since the papers show us that all this is 
only fraud and charlatanism, why do the scholars 
not undertake to elucidate the question? It should 
be settled." 

But when in 1864, Count A. de Gasparin accu- 
mulated experiment after experiment, it was even 
then for the purpose of settling it. 

When Robert Hare constructed the first appara- 
tus to establish certitude upon an objective basis, he 
planned to settle the question. 

When in 1869, the Dialectic Society of London 
created a commission of investigation, it was still for 
the purpose of settlement. 

When still later, it was asserted that Sir William 
Crookes was the sole authority capable of pronounc- 
ing judgment, and the unbelievers declared in ad- 
vance their intention of accepting as final the results 
of experiments based upon registering devices set- 
tling the matter was once more in order. 

JVhen M. Rochas added to all these proofs a new 



THE ESTABLISHED FACT 93 

objective basis, by publishing the photographs of 
his work on L'Exteriorisation de la Motricite (The 
Outward Manifestation of Motivity), it was yet for 
the purpose of settlement. 

When Cesar Lombroso, in 1891, accepted a cele- 
brated challenge, and consented to examine Eusapia, 
that also was to settle the question. 

And when journalists, who do not know the first 
word of the problem, come to us to say that our 
affirmations rest upon no objective basis, it will be 
for them to settle it. Let them tell us then what 
is an objective basis, what is a proof, and why our 
proofs are not proofs. 

Several years ago, another attempt at solution 
was started. There was in Paris on the rue de 
Conde, a general Psychological Institute, whose be- 
ginning was not exactly favorable for our phenomena 
and whose method, marred with preconceived opin- 
ion and dogmatism, even succeeded in discouraging 
several eminent psychists who withdrew from its 
membership. It was this society which resolved to 
have done with the matter. They imagined that the 
previous experimenters must have been victims of 
collective hallucinations, and that since our senses 
may deceive us, their testimony could have no ob- 
jective value. The Institute then declared that if 
the testimony of the senses corresponded to the re- 
sults duly registered by the automatic apparatus 
constructed for this purpose, they would have set 
aside, this time, all possibility of error. 

This was done in the course of a long series of 
experiments, covering three years, under the direc- 
tion of Messrs. Curie, d'Arsonval, Bergson, Branly, 
Ed. Perrier, Boutroux, etc. These experiments 



94 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

should have given results which we could no longer 
question. 

At the same time that the subject was being con- 
trolled, the automatic devices in a neighboring room 
were graphically inscribing the number and ampli- 
tude of the movements. They indicated liftings of 
the table, whether it was fully detached from the 
floor or if it raised one, two or three of its feet. 
Complete levitations of the four feet were registered 
during thirty to sixty seconds, while the attention 
of the spectators, thus relieved from the care of 
noting down the phenomenon, was occupied only in 
watching, some the hands, some the feet and others 
the knees or head of the medium. 

But it were better to give some extracts from the 
report of the General Institute. 

Extract from The Bulletin of the General 
Psychological Institute, p. 436: 

"Eusapia asks the Countess de Grammont, who is 
outside the chain, to seat herself upon the table. 
She sits upon the small side of the table opposite 
Eusapia. Under these conditions, the third and 
fourth feet (those farthest from the medium) are 
raised and as the table falls back, a foot is broken. 
( Controllers : on the left, M. Yourievitch ; at the 
right, M. Curie). 

"Complete Lifting of the Table. The blinds of 
the two windows in the experimental room are open. 
(Controllers: at left, M. Yourievitch; at right, M. 
d'Arsonval.) Eusapia asks if M. Bergson (who is 
outside of the chain) sees both her knees. M. Berg- 
son : 'Very well.' " 



THE ESTABLISHED FACT 95 

The table suddenly rises from all four feet. M. 
Yourievitch: "I am sure that I did not loose her 
hand." 

M. d*Arsonval : "I, also." 

Another Case. Everyone is standing. At the 
request of Eusapia, M. Courtier holds her limbs; 
the table rises with its four feet about fifty centi- 
meters above the carpet. 

M. Debierne: "Her hand was upon the table." 

M. Courtier: "I hold both her legs." 

The table is lifted a second time under the same 
conditions. 

Let us cite a last example, in which the conditions 
of evidence seem absolute : p. 472. 

The small table (placed to the left of Eusapia, 
fifty centimeters from her chair) , is completely lifted 
while Eusapia's feet are fastened to the feet of her 
chair, by the laces of her boots, and her wrists at- 
tached to the wrists of the controllers. 

Reaching in its ascension the height of M. Curie's 
shoulders it turns over, with feet in air, then alights, 
its top against the top of the large table. The 
movement is not rapid, but appears to be carefully 
guided. Controllers: at left, M. Curie; at right, 
M. Yourievitch. 

Neither Curie, nor Fielding, nor Yourievitch, nor 
Courtier, under whose eyes the occurrence took place 
in a light sufficient to analyze its phases, noticed at 
this moment any suspicious movement of the sub- 
ject, who remained, as has been stated, bound hand 
and foot. 



We have felt that facts so simple, so clear, oh* 1 



96 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

served in broad daylight, subjected to an absolute 
control, and affirmed without restriction by scholarly 
authorities, could not be denied, save by persons 
suffering from cerebral anemia. That is also the 
opinion of Dr. Flournoy, the eminent psychologist, 
who, still hostile to our theories, but a conscientious 
scholar, bows before the facts and concludes: 

"The report of the General Psychological Insti- 
tute is overwhelming. ... I feel that the report 
constitutes a shining and decisive testimony in so 
much as there can be anything decisive in science." 

And the reader will draw the same conclusion, we 
trust. 



CHAPTER VI 
THE MOTIVE AGENTS 

It seems certain that in cases like those I cite, 
we have the proof of a thought, an intelligence at 
work in ourselves, and distinct from our own 
personalities. 

Sir John Heeschell. 

After having established the materialism of these 
facts, let us now examine the intelligence which they 
manifest and the sense in which they can be inter- 
preted. 

Heavy bodies moved by exterior substance can 
obey the most diverse agents. It is generally ad- 
mitted that these movements can be directed by the 
subconscious element or by surrounding ideas; but 
there is a fact which has been proved by observation, 
and which is no longer to be denied — that the mo- 
tive agent can be a living person, present or not 
at the time of the experience, and even, sometimes, 
very far from the medium. 

These cases are valuable for study, since they 
are the only ones that show with certainty the agent 
who calls forth the phenomenon. In the discovery 
of this source we have been able to distinguish 
telepathy from organic disorders. Thus, we may 
affirm that not only organs, but also inert bodies, 
when they are enveloped by the animic influx, can 
be moved telepathically, although the person who 

97 



98 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

thinks is wholly unconscious of the effect produced. 
And it is well to guard against attributing this 
phenomenon to an unconscious agent, since conscious- 
ness is present; it is found in the active agent who 
is conscious of these ideas. 

When one has a true medium and when a table 
becomes animated after a suitable preparation, take 
a pack of cards, place one that no one has seen in 
the center of the table and ask who can guess the 
placed card; most often you will have no response, 
or will obtain only deplorable gropings. But stay 
on the outside of the circle, begin the trial again 
with a card that you alone have seen, and the table 
will divine accurately. 

Here is a proof of transmission of thought. Here 
you will be the active agent, the exterior substance 
will be at the same time sensitive and active; it will 
divine in you the thought formed and will find, in 
itself, the force which permits it to rise spontane- 
ously at the opportune moment. 

Such an organism, exteriorized, that is to say, 
acting outside of the physiological center which is 
its normal habitat, is open to all influences, exposed 
to all caprices, and it often becomes a mirror of 
errors and incoherences. Thus is shown a mani- 
festation of an inferior order. 

Nevertheless we see that, in the same field of 
mysterious force, an intelligence is manifested which 
shows itself independent; some special circumstance 
permits the discovery of the agent which has brought 
this reaction, and it happens that this was a living 
person, unknown to the audience — one who sent true 
messages. There is a manifestation which becomes 
instructive, as it is of a much higher degree. 



THE MOTIVE AGENTS 99 

Finally, the influence changes again, a mysterious 
entity seems to take possession of this force, and, 
through it, gives responses which it is impossible to 
attribute to a living person, and makes revelations 
which seem to establish the identity of one deceased. 
Therein is the transcendent manifestation. 

Numerous examples of these three degrees of 
manifestations are found in special works. What- 
ever we say of table-tipping, we could also say of 
automatic writing, and one sees by this, what close 
relations unite all these phenomena. Telepathy acts 
as well, directly upon the interior sensorium, as in- 
directly upon the secondary organs and the motor 
centers, and even, as is the case around a table, upon 
the animic substance which seems to overflow cor- 
poreal form as the field of magnetic force spreads 
around the braces of a magnet. 

Thus, pure thought tends to produce upon all 
sensitive organs, visual and auditory images, etc., 
and even motive images which produce the so-called 
unconscious movements. A phenomenon is capri- 
cious, it responds to our demands, it defers to our 
desires, but it does not obey our will. Good com- 
munications, however, are rare, because the nebulous 
psychic constitutes, in a manner, an amorphous be- 
ing as long as a directing entity has not taken 
possession of it. A true communication can only 
be obtained in as far as an intelligence intervenes 
strong enough to set aside the unformed thoughts 
which create confusion. 

It may be, however, that we hold the fact as a 
revelation. Each time that we have been able to 
trace back to the source of an automatic message, 
we have found it in a living person. We are very 



100 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

certain then that the telepathic action we have seen 
affect sensitive centers can exert a similar influence 
upon the excitomotor centers, and thus create an 
altogether automatic mode of correspondence. A 
person physiologically endowed to produce automa- 
tic writing is alone in her home; a force incites her 
to take a pencil ; and she writes : 

"Your friend wishes to see you, he is at present 
on a certain street, such and such a number." 

You hurry there and find the message to be true. 

Another writes : "Your friend X is coming to 

see you, he has taken the 'bus at such a station, in 
half an hour he will be with you." 

It is not the consciousness of the subject that 
writes these things; nor is it the consciousness of 
the friend; the psychic force draws from somewhere 
the clairvoyance of which it gives proof. The rest 
is formed according to the ordinary processes of 
thought; that which we do ourselves in writing is 
well known; we think the written form; and the rest 
is mechanical — the thought is equivalent to the ac- 
tion. Starting from there, one can and one should 
admit the presence of a third conscious entity, wit- 
ness of the actions of the friend X , and inform- 
ing the medium by thinking through her organism. 
It is not necessary, even, that this third person be 
conscious of the effect which she produces; with the 
medium thus endowed many things may be perceived 
as though by chance. 

I see no reason, however, for not admitting a 
voluntary and conscious intervention in the presence 
of clearly formulated expression. 

When a medium who writes takes the pen and 
indicates with great precision the means of finding 



THE MOTIVE AGENTS 101 

a lost article, people at once say: "Cryptomnesia," 
but the medium is altogether a stranger to those 
who consult her on the lost article, and if the con- 
sultant has not lost this article himself, there can 
be no question of cryptomnesia. This knowledge 
must exist elsewhere than in the memory, and some 
intelligence must formulate the phrase which can 
start the motive mechanism only by an active 
thought; and an intelligence is necessary, foreign 
to the medium and the consultant, in order to know 
what neither of them could know. 

I believe, all the more, in the intervention of an 
occult intelligence, as the motor center is incapable 
of producing anything but movement. Neither is it 
easy to explain writing in a mirror, writing back- 
wards, the inversion of letters and syllables, etc. 
These games are difficult and would necessitate sus- 
tained attention. They certainly are not born in 
the thought of the audience; they are the automatic 
reflection of something which is thought in the 
Beyond. 

Sometimes the intelligence versifies and exacts an 
answer in rhyme. These are indications that we are 
not concerned with ganglionary intelligences. 

Cryptomnesia — Cryptomnesia ! Now, we believe 
that a conscious cerebration is necessary for a 
coherent wording. If these things reflect the men- 
tality of the experimenters, it is because there is 
somewhere an intelligence which gives the form and 
expression to their own thought which it reflects. 

In vain you will call that subconsciousness. These 
are thoroughly active states of consciousness, cap- 
able as we of influencing an organism, and knowing 
our language, philosophy, and sciences. [They are 



102 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

cognizant of the effects they have produced. I 
should be interested to meet an opponent capable of 
maintaining that an unconscious person can act in 
a state of unconsciousness. They are not rare, how- 
ever, those naive people who still believe that psychic 
phenomena receive some elucidation from the theory 
of the unconscious agent. 

It is time to denounce this nonsense. Subcon- 
sciousness is the life of the heart and stomach; it 
is my digestion. Subconsciousness is also the 
mechanism of what is already very well known, that 
no longer has need of conscious direction : the cyelist 
holds his equilibrium subconsciously. It is, then, at 
the most, memory, insofar as it functions without 
attracting the attention of the subject. This is 
active subconsciousness, and I defy anyone to point 
out another. 

Automatic writing is a motive action exercised 
over the head of the subject in his inferior organs. 
This action reveals an autonomous intelligence and 
a knowledge foreign to the medium. 

Sometimes the subconscious agent is not content 
to act intelligently; it might also act physically in 
suppressing effort and fatigue. 

Nor should we forget the speaking medium. The 
process is always the same, that is to say, a force 
which passes over the will of the subject coerces his 
organs: and this force always gives proof of 
intelligence and special knowledge. For instance, 
the special knowledge will be in speaking a language 
unknown to the medium. The foreign influence must 
be indispensable here. 

Sometimes great forces seem to be unloosed. Thus, 
during the persecutions which followed the Revoca- 



THE MOTIVE AGENTS 103 

tion of the Edict of Nantes, an unknown power in- 
vaded a whole region. In Dauphine, in Cevennes 
very little children who had never spoken a word, 
in sections where they spoke mostly a patois, would 
deliver in excellent French most remarkable dis- 
courses, which revived the courage of the persecuted. 
The Catholic children, inspired by the same force, 
spoke with the same import as the Protestants, that 
is, against their own church. This special case is 
no more clearly explained by fanaticism than by 
subconsciousness. Whoever is possessed by this in- 
fluence has no idea of the words spoken until he 
has given them utterance. A case which it is not 
possible to challenge, is that of the daughter of 
Judge Edmund ; the force which mastered her organs 
made her speak ten or twelve languages, perhaps 
more. 

And these are not the only motive faculties which 
fall under the domination of a foreign power; there 
are still the sensitive faculties. 

Note well this difference. Just now, we passed 
over the subject's will to make use of his organs; 
now we shall efface before him the existing realities 
in order to penetrate more easily into his sensibility. 
It is the real world which has entirely disappeared, 
to give place for a symbolic vision; it is anaesthesia 
imposed upon exterior organs before the image shows 
itself, before the vision appears, whose aim would 
seem incontestable and whose usefulness immediate. 

Thus it is that a lady sees the image of her mother 
lying upon the floor and, without inquiring into her 
vision, goes to find the doctor before returning home 
and saves the patient by going direct to the scene 
of the accident. 



i 104 PROOFS OF THE SPIRir'WORLD 

At other times it is the auditory sense which is 
affected. Doctor Smith, alone in his study, hears 
these words: "Send some bread to the house of 
James Gandy." The doctor does not know the ad- 
dress and hesitates. "Send some bread to the house 
of James Gandy," the same voice repeats more 
strongly, and three times he hears the same injunc- 
tion. At the bakery, a young boy is found at the 
door of the shop and is ordered to carry bread to 
this address which is unknown to the doctor; there 
the children are crying with hunger, before their 
mother, who is praying God to send her something. 1 

Oh, I know the explanation that will be given! — 
the emotional state of the mother was such that it 
struck the percipiency of the good doctor. All of 
that does not explain the auditory phenomenon in 
the form in which it was perceived. Here took place 
what I call mirror action, an intelligence which re- 
ceives the prayer of the mother, and which produces 
the sensorial hallucination in creating the formula 
adapted to the circumstances. There are many cases, 
to my knowledge, where some particularly united 
persons have perceived these emotional states at a 
distance. It was then the psychic bond which estab- 
lished a direct communication; but in these cases the 
sensitive one heard the same words which had been 
spoken or thought a great distance from him. Here 
is another consideration; the doctor did not hear, 
"Oh God, send me some bread;" he did not hear, 
"I am hungry, Mother," nor any other word of the 
scene itself; he merely received a reiterated sum- 
mons. The emotional state which struck him was 
not that of an imploring person, but that of one 

i Case 287 — Phantasms of the Living. 



THE MOTIVE AGENTS 105 

who commands. I do not see what telepathic proc- 
ess could thus transpose the effects. I see nothing 
other than conscious and reflecting intelligence. Nor 
is telepathy a source that may be invoked when the 
phenomenon interests only one person. 

Thus a woman in her bath received a summons 
to unlock the door; stupefaction, resistance, and the 
order was reiterated until she had unlocked the door. 
Later her maid found her in a faint in the bath tub, 
and she would certainly have been drowned had it 
not been possible to open the door. 

There is no subconscious explanation which gives 
a reason for these things that can also present them- 
selves under other forms ; for example, an aged lady, 
in a dark corridor, was about to fall into the open 
shaft of an elevator, in which the car had descended. 
A phantom barred her way. Hallucination? Yes, 
without doubt, but intelligent hallucination, pro- 
voked at an opportune time by a guardian spirit. 
Every other interpretation becomes too complicated. 

All this does not prevent writing, unconscious 
movements, automatic speaking, and visual and 
auditory images from appearing in their purely 
physiological form; but in this case the explanation 
is simple and does not become entangled in the diffi- 
culties encountered in the preceding cases. 

I have just cited two examples of timely warnings. 
The following is another which seems of the same 
type, although it be purely physiological. Myers 
gives us this example as an explanation of illusions 
in which the spiritists fail, but his comparison is 
unjustified. 

A lady, standing before her fireplace, held in one 
hand a bank note which she was preparing to put 



106 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

into her drawer; in the other, a letter which was 
to be thrown into the fireplace. Mechanically she 
reread the letter; then, when she had finished it, and 
without paying attention to her act, she made an 
inverse gesture. The letter was going in the drawer, 
the money into the flames. But her arms stiffened 
and could not execute the movement. They had re- 
ceived a general inhibition. Perhaps this lady be- 
lieved in the intervention of a protective intelligence, 
but the physiological process is rather clear, never- 
theless. There is in each functional organ a sensi- 
tive consciousness. Consciousness A was given an 
order to grasp the bank note; consciousness B, 
equally expectant, was ready for the execution of 
a different order — to put the letter into the fire. 
Unknown to the lady, each motive center was only 
awaiting its final command for the execution; at the 
precise moment when the gesture would become 
executory, the lady sent a suggestion in a contrary 
sense that produced a contraction. The lady hap- 
pened to be exactly in the situation of the drill ser- 
geant who is confused in commanding his platoon — 
the order is not regular, and no one moves. 

This is a purely physiological explanation. Can 
we apply it to the preceding phenomenon? It is 
very evident that the inferior organism of the other 
lady had no knowledge of the position of the eleva- 
tor; hence the form of the phenomenon, owing to 
subconsciousness, would have been general inhibition 
— the lady would have been unable to advance. In- 
stead, what do we find? An hallucinary and pre- 
servative form — that is entirely different; and we 
know that hallucinations, when they are not un- 
healthy, are provoked by the emotional states of the 



THE MOTIVE AGENTS 107 

persons with whom we are sympathetic. This lady 
can very well, then, have seen an image created by 
the emotional state of an invisible friend. But it is 
above all when the motive agent is a living person 
that this statement becomes interesting. 

Perty tells the following fact which is reported Ky 
Aksakof : 1 

Sophie Swoboda, because of a family party, had 
been unable to prepare her lessons. She quit the 
company for a moment, and while she was alone 
found herself, mentally, face to face with her teacher. 
It seemed that she spoke to the teacher, explaining 
her neglect and expressing her regrets ; and then, 
rejoining the party, she imparted to the guests what 
had just happened to her. At the same time the 
instructress, who was a writing medium, took a 
pencil and communicated with her husband; the 
communication stopped short and a handwriting, 
that she recognized as Sophie's, warned her that the 
lesson was not prepared. She carried the original 
writing to her pupil. It was the same text, with the 
same pleasant expressions, which Sophie had em- 
ployed in her fictitious conversation with the in- 
structress. 

From this example, and many others, we are en- 
titled to reject the conclusion of those who claim 
that automatic writing emanates always from the 
one who produces it. The secret depths of subcon- 
sciousness are certainly possible sources; but it is 
not safe to generalize from that, since cryptomnesia 
is out of the question in many cases whose motive 
agents are known to us. 

Aksakof cites as well the example of L Thomas 

* Animism and Spiritism, p. 478. 



108 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

Everitt, whose wife was a medium, and who by her 
mediation, corresponded with one of his friends. 
Florence Marryat, moreover, reports that she wrote 
with her own hands a communication coming from 
a sleeping person; and W. Stead, the great jour- 
nalist, corresponded at a distance with his son and 
several other living persons. 

In closing, let us note that between a table mes- 
sage and a written one, there is no essential differ- 
ence; these are the same forces which animate either 
an organism, or inanimate matter, and the effects 
differ only by reason of the imperfection of the 
means. 

An example which discloses, with the same evi- 
dence, the motive source of a communication obtained 
with a table, is taken from the ninth volume of the 
Proceedings of the S. F. P. R., p. 48. We can give 
only a resume. 

Case of Mrs. Kirby. 

Mrs. Kirby lived in Santa Cruz, California, on 
a ranch, where was employed an illiterate young 
English sailor named Thomas Travers. 

While they were trying an experiment with a table 
among the family, the table spelled the name of 
Mary Howels, entirely unknown to those present. 
Mary Howels, however, declared that she was the 
sister of Thomas Travers, which implied a contra- 
diction because, having also stated that she was not 
married, she would have borne the same name as her 
brother. The latter, on being questioned, admitted 
with embarrassment that he had changed his name 
since leaving the service of a whaling-vessel, fearing 
that he would be recalled by the maritime draft. 



THE MOTIVE AGENTS 109 

In reality his name was indeed Howels. Mary 
Howels then spelled out : "I have a child, a daughter ; 
she is seven years old and lives at present on Cat 
Street in an evil house. I wish that my brother 
might take her away from there." 

Thomas, being illiterate, did not grasp the mean- 
ing of this message and they hesitated to tell him. 
But finally they said: "Your sister claims that she 
has a little girl seven years old" — Tom counted on 
his fingers and replied — "That is true, seven years 
to-day." The rest of the message moved him deeply 
and he promised to send fifty dollars the following 
month. But they asked him if there was really a 
Cat Street in Plymouth, England, for that was the 
original home of the false Travers. "Yes," he an- 
swered, "and it is in the worst section of the city." 

During the following days, Mary Howels mani- 
fested herself anew, announcing that her child was 
ill. Later, she was worse, then she said her daughter 
was dying and finally confirmed her death. "Well," 
they replied to her, "She is now with you." "No," 
answered the table. 

Strangely enough, the witnesses had continued 
this dialogue in the belief that they were conversing 
with the spirit of Mary Howels deceased; but she 
was living; they had forgotten to question her on 
this subject. 

That became interesting. Mrs. Kirby decided 
someone should write cautiously to Thomas' parents, 
and this she did in his name, asking news of the 
child. An answer came saying all were well save 
Mary's daughter, who was dead. 

The seances had been held in Santa Cruz, Cali- 
fornia, and Mary Howels was in Plymouth, England. 



110 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

The time in Santa Cruz, between seven and nine (the 
time of the seances) corresponded to the middle of 
the night in Plymouth. Thus the thoughts of Mary 
Howels were exteriorized during her sleep, and it 
was the transmission of these thoughts that caused 
the table movement in Santa Cruz. 

The Commission of the Psychical Society cor- 
responded with Mrs. Kirby upon this subject; and 
in the hope of verifying the story, she wrote to the 
Post Office in Plymouth to ascertain if the above- 
named street really existed. The following reply 
was received: 

Post Office, Plymouth, 
January 23, 1888. 
Sir: 

In reply to your favor of the 21st inst., I am able 
to inform you, that until a few years ago, there was 
a street here, called Catte Street, and it is at present 
named Stillman Street. 

Yours very truly, 
R. A. Leverton, 
for the director. 

It is sometimes difficult to explain the automatic 
phenomenon; it is often possible to determine its 
agents. Render unto subconsciousness that which 
belongs to subconsciousness, and unto the spirit that 
which belongs to the spirit. 

The human mind has sufficiently proven its power 
to influence the organs; one can no longer deny it 
this faculty, which we judge normal, when it is exer- 
cised by ourselves, and abnormal when an outside 
agent substitutes itself for our normal action. When 
|t is a question of telepathy or automatism, it is the 



THE MOTIVE AGENTS 111 

same phenomenon which affects, in the first case, the 
sensitive centers, in the second, the excito-motor 
centers, and which produces, in the one, images, and 
in the other, movements. Henceforth, we know then, 
a possible motor agent of the phenomenon of un- 
conscious automatism; it is, indeed, the human 
person, an exterior source, foreign to the organs, 
which provokes the movement. This established, we 
cannot fail to wonder if the proof of a life in the 
Beyond could be given us, in the same way, in case 
a disembodied spirit could exert upon us a telepathic 
action followed by the same results. 

Incontestably, this proof has been given us; but 
one can always escape from it by supposing that 
there exists in the Beyond beings different from us 
but corresponding with us and knowing our language, 
so that they are enabled to play the roles of our 
disembodied friends, with an aim in view which we 
cannot comprehend. It is for the reader to judge 
the probability of this interpretation. 

We have an experiment made some years ago, by 
Doctor Ermacora, founder of the Review of Psychic 
Studies (La Revue des Etudes Psychiques). 

The doctor had a subject, Miss Manzini, who had 
given him phenomena of spiritistic appearance of 
the best quality. He asked the personality in the 
Beyond, who was manifested by automatic writing 
under the name of Elvira, to give him a proof of 
her objective reality, by a direct action which she 
was to exert upon a little girl of five years. 

The proof of Elvira was to consist in the creation 
of a dream, entirely imagined by Dr. Ermacora, 
which the child could recount upon awakening. 

Naturally, it was necessary to assure the complete 



112 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

isolation of the child, an orphan, who was then liv- 
ing with the medium, Miss Manzini, who had her 
mother with her also. 

The child, kept in ignorance of the experiment 
that was to be tried, was removed to another part 
of the house and was often already asleep when the 
doctor dictated the scope of the dream. 

All verbal communication was rendered impossibe 
through seals affixed by the doctor upon the doors 
of the room where Miss Manzini slept, the other per- 
son being ignorant of the prepared subject. The 
doctor himself would come to break the seals the 
next morning and the child would be questioned. 

The experiments numbered one hundred. For 
subject matter of the dreams, they chose scenes most 
incompatible with the knowledge of the child . . . 
balloon ascensions, tempests, trips to the mountains, 
etc. 

Here are some examples : 1 

No. 76. Subject of the Dream. The Child will 
be a blacksmith, out of work, who will go to ask 
employment from the farrier, who lives in a certain 
street of Padua. The latter, to test the skill of 
the workman, will give him a horse-shoe to fashion. 
While Angeline, the blacksmith, is forging it, the 
iron will break in pieces and they will discharge her 
on this account. 

"In the morning," wrote Dr. Ermacora, "I found 
the seals intact and the dream had taken place in 
its least details. The child could not tell the name 
of the street, but she described it exactly." 

Let me mention also this curious theme, which 
succeeded. 

i Taken from the book by Mr. Sage, The Frontier Zone. 



THE MOTIVE AGENTS 113 

No. 82. The child will be an ant dragging a 
crumb of bread. 

And this other: 

No. 98. Subject of the Dream. The child will 
be a Frenchman, a professor at the University of 
Tokio. A friend will send him as a present ten 
bottles of Bordeaux, asking him to analyze the wind 
to learn if it contains iron; iron will be found in it. 

Finally, I requested Miss Marie to give verbally, 
two or three times, to the child, already asleep in 
another room, the suggestion to dream that she was 
playing with a red ball. 

The same control as in No. 80. The child re- 
counted her dream as usual to Mme. Annette, who 
reported it to me. In the dream she was an old 
gentleman who taught young people speaking an- 
other language. Another gentleman sent her a gift 
of several bottles of wine, she did not know the exact 
number, but thought it was eight or nine. She 
poured into this wine a little of the contents of a 
bottle and the wine became entirely black ; she added, 
there was iron in it. Mme. Annette, not understand- 
ing the meaning of these words, said to her: "But 
if the wine contained iron, this iron would have 
broken the bottles !" To which the child replied : 
"No ! no ! the wine simply tasted of iron." The 
chemical reaction dreamed by the child conforms to 
the truth, for iron really produces a very dark 
coloration. It must be noted that neither the little 
girl nor Miss Marie Manzini have the least notion 
of chemistry. So we have the right to suppose the 
intervention of another intelligence. There was no 
dream of the red ball. 

I know there is a ready theory for cases of this 



114 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

kind, that of the subconscious agent; it is not the 
will that acts, but the idea alone. We believe that 
also, except, if we admit that the idea may act 
mechanically, outside of the consciousness of the one 
emitting it, it becomes most absurd to suppose that 
ideas, in a state of repose in the subconsciousness 
of the agent, may manifest themselves in the form 
of a discursive thought, or in the manner of complex 
images, in coherent order. That is why the inter- 
vention from the other world, perceiving the idea, 
and reviving it opportunely, seems to us much better 
adapted to the nature of the phenomenon. 

Let us pass to another phenomenon. Automatic 
writing gives exact information unknown to all the 
persons present, so that we must suppose there is 
somewhere a motive force acting at the moment. If 
it be a deceased spirit, it may act while dying as 
well as after its death. These spontaneous cases 
can almost never be verified ; however, there is a case 
of this kind which offers the advantage of having 
been noted by an eminent specialist. 

Case reported by Dr. Liebault, 4, rue de Bellevue, 
Nancy. 1 

September 4, 1885. 
"I hasten to write to you concerning the act of 
thought-transference, of which I spoke when you 
honored me with your presence at my hypnotic 
seances in Nancy. 2 This occurence took place in a 
French family of New Orleans, who had come to 
live for a time in Nancy in order to settle some 
money matters. 

i Phantasms of the Living. London, 1886, p. 293. 
2 Let us remark in passing, there is no thought-transference 
in an automatic action. 



THE MOTIVE AGENTS 115 

"One day, the 7th of February, I believe, about 
eight o'clock in the morning, at the hour for break- 
fasting, Miss B felt a need, a something which 

urged her to write (it was what she called a trance), 
and she hurried at once to her large notebook, where 
she feverishly penciled indecipherable characters. 
She retraced the same characters upon the follow- 
ing pages, and finally, the excitement of her mind 
growing calmer, it could be read that a person 
named Marguerite was announcing her death. She 
imagined at once that a girl of this name, who was 
her friend and a teacher in the same boarding-school 
of Coblenz, where she had also taught, had just died. 

All the G family, including Miss B came 

immediately to me and we decided to discover, on 
that very day, whether this death had really taken 
place. 

"Miss B wrote to a young English friend, 

who was also an instructor at the school in question ; 
she made up a motive, being careful not to reveal 
the real motive of her letter. By return post, we 
received a reply in English, the essential part of 
which was copied for me — a reply which I found 
in a portfolio scarcely two weeks ago and have mis- 
laid again. It expressed the surprise of the English 

girl, concerning Miss B 's letter, which she had 

not expected so soon, since its motive did not seem 
sufficient for its appearance. But at the same time 
the English friend hastened to tell our medium that 
their common friend, Marguerite, had died on the 
7 th of February, about eight o'clock in the morning. 
In addition, a small square of printed paper was 
inserted in the letter — it was a death notice. It is 
unnecessary to tell you that I verified the envelope 
of the letter and that it seemed to me to have really 
come from Coblenz." 



116 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

This is, therefore, a case where all fraud would 
have been impossible, and concerning which but two 
Irypotheses remain: either the motive agent was the 
deceased person herself, or else an entity from the 
Beyond expressed the active thought, indispensable 
to transmission of the message. 

We shall now invalidate the first of these hypothe- 
ses, by quoting another case in which the dying per- 
son could not, at the moment of his death, have 
influenced the subject. 1 

"On January 3rd, 1856, the steamboat 'ALICE,* 
which my brother Joseph then commanded, had a 
collision with another steamboat on the Mississippi, 
upstream from New Orleans. By reason of the 
shock, the flag mast or pole fell with great violence, 
and striking my brother upon the head, cracked his 
skull. Death was necessarily instantaneous. In the 
month of October, 1867, I went to the United States. 
During the visit I made in my father's home, at 
Camden, New Jersey, the tragic death of my brother 
naturally became the subject of our conversation. 
My mother then told me that she had seen my 
brother Joseph appear to her at the very moment 
of his death. The fact was confirmed by my father 
and my four sisters. The distance between Camden, 
New Jersey, and the scene of the accident is in a 
direct line of more than one thousand miles, but 
this distance is almost double by the postal route. 
My mother spoke of the apparition to my father 
and sisters on the morning of January 4th, and it 
was not until the 16th — that is, thirteen days later 
— that a letter arrived, confirming in its least de- 
tails, this extraordinary 'visit.' It is important 

i Phantasms of the Living, Vol. I, p. 204, taken from the 
French translation in Hallucinations Telepathiques, p. 117. 



THE MOTIVE AGENTS 117 

to note that my brother William and his wife, who 
now live in Philadelphia, then resided near the scene 
of the terrible accident. They also have assured me 
of the details concerning the impression produced 
upon my mother." 

Mrs. Collyer's Story. 

"On the 3rd of January, 1856, I did not feel well 
and retired early. Sometime afterwards, I felt ill 
at ease, and sat up in bed. I looked round the room 
and to my very great astonishment, saw Joseph 
standing near the door. He gazed at me with large 
mournful eyes and his head was swathed with 
bandages. He wore a soiled nightcap and a white 
garment like a surplice, also soiled. He was entirely 
disfigured; I was troubled for the rest of the night 
because of this apparition, etc." 

In reply to a request for enlightenment, Dr. 
Collyer wrote: 

"As I have stated, my mother received the spirit- 
ual impression of my brother, on the 3rd of January, 
1856. My father, who is a scientist, calculated the 
difference in longitude between Camden, New Jer- 
sey, and New Orleans, and proved that the spiritual 
impression was produced at the exact moment of my 
brother's death. I may say that I have never be- 
lieved in any spiritual communion, as I have never 
believed that the phenomena produced when the 
brain is excited are spiritual phenomena. For forty 
years I have been a materialist and am convinced 
that all the so-called spiritual manifestations admit 
of a philosophic explanation, based upon physical 
laws and conditions. I do not wish to propound a 
theory, but in my opinion, there existed sympathetic 



118 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

bonds of relationship between my mother and 
brother, who was her favorite son. When these 
bonds were broken by his sudden death, my mother 
was at the time in a condition which would favor the 
reception of the shock. 1 

"In the story published by the Spiritual Maga- 
zine, I omitted to say, that before the accident, my 
brother Joseph had retired for the night to his 
bunk; the boat was moored along the levee, at the 
time it was struck by another vessel descending the 
Mississippi. Naturally, my brother was in his night 
clothes. As soon as he was called and someone told 
him a steamboat was close upon his own boat, he 
ran up on deck. These details were told to me by 
my brother William who was at that very time upon 
the scene of the accident. I cannot explain how the 
apparition wore bandages, for they could not have 
put them upon my brother until sometime after his 
death. The difference in time between Camden, New 
Jersey and New Orleans, is almost fifteen degrees, 
that is, an hour. 

"On the third of January, my mother retired 
early, about eight o'clock; this would have given 
seven o'clock (the time in New Orleans) as the hour 
of my brother's death." 

It is evident that a death so sudden would render 
impossible all active cerebration. Moreover, the 
victim received at the moment of the accident no 

i The reception of the shock, as well as the broken bond, 
could be only metaphors upon the lips of a materialist. What 
shock could medullary substance produce at a distance of a 
thousand miles? As for the physical bond, if it be real it is 
impossible to say whether it is material or not. We can only 
accept what is proven; it has been proved that force may act 
at a distance, but not that matter may so act. If the mind 
acts at a distance, it is because it is a force. 



THE MOTIVE AGENTS 119 

visuai image; therefore, he was unable to transmit 
one. However, the deceased person might have 
looked upon his own corpse and have been the motive 
agent of this transmission. 

But there is nothing to prove that the image was 
not transmitted by another witness of the accident. 
Despite the affirmations of Dr. Collyer, who claimed 
that his father had established coincidence in cal- 
culating the difference in longitude, in reality, noth- 
ing was proved, the report is silent concerning the 
hour of the accident and that of the vision. On 
the other hand, it is stated that the brother of the 
victim lived in the neighborhood. It is very prob- 
able then, that he had already seen the bandage and 
night clothes of the victim when the mother received 
the impression. 

Consequently, it was the brother William, who in 
this case served as a mirror, and it is he who may 
be presumed to have been the motive agent. 

This remark is important because it is too often 
supposed that visions of this kind, produced at the 
moment of dying, are due to a state of over-excite- 
ment preceding death. It is a gratuitous hypothesis, 
and it is interesting to note the numerous cases from 
which it must be excluded. 

When we find ourselves incontestably facing a 
cast of post-mortem apparation, and when the acci- 
dent has had no witnesses, a still bolder hypothesis 
is profounded, that of retarded telepathy. 

This hypothesis does not correspond to the facts ; 
there must be an intelligence and an active force to 
explain telepathy. Also, post-mortem apparitions 
ordinarily accompany warnings which are outside 



120 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

the knowledge of all living persons, as in the follow- 
ing case: 

Resume of page 291, Volume V, Proceedings of 
the Society for Psychical Research. 

"Mrs. Brooks was traveling in Europe and had 
written to her son, employed in New York and 
living in Brooklyn, to join her. The latter replied, 
fixing the time of his departure. But in the mean- 
time he fell ill, and his mother was obliged to return 
home, recalled by the illness of her son. However, 
she found him already able to be up, and the doctor 
had no doubt of his complete recovery. 

"The young man then declared that a Mr. Hall, 
his professor and friend, who had died about five 
months before, had appeared to him and warned him 
that he would die of heart disease on Wednesday, 
the 5th of December, at three o'clock. 

"Young Brooks had never had the least heart 
trouble, and those of his friends to whom he told the 
warning held it of no importance. His doctor only 
laughed and assured him that his heart was in perfect 
condition. 

"On December 4th, he attended a funeral with a 
lady in whose company he passed the evening. He 
made her promise that she would come to see him 
the next day if he should write to her. The doctor, 
on his side, seeking to distract the patient by 
physical means, applied to his neck a blistering 
plaster. 

"Wednesday morning young Brooks arose as usual, 
breakfasted comfortably, and according to all ap- 
pearances seemed destined to a long life ; the doctor 
left him without the least disquietude. The young 
man insisted that his mother should not remain with 
him, saying: 'It would kill you to see me die.' His 
mother, in order to appear not to take him seriously, 



THE MOTIVE AGENTS 121 

left him without opposition, but proposing to return. 
At two o'clock he lunched with the family, then feel- 
ing weak asked to return to his room where he wrote 
to the young lady, who arrived in twenty minutes. 
"He died in the presence of his family ten minutes 
after three. His mother and the doctor, who ar- 
rived a few moments later, were stunned to find the 
prediction come true." 

Mr. Gurney, who verified this case, wrote: "He 
was a young man of very strong character, excep- 
tional mind, and splendid physique." 

In special studies, this narrative and many others 
in similar vein always figure in the chapter upon 
premonitions. But the question raised is how a 
premonition may be given by an apparition without 
consciousness or aim, an apparition that could exist 
only by virtue of a previously expressed thought, 
and that would reach the subject under the form of 
retarded telepathy. 

It is of small importance, indeed, that the ap- 
parition may have been material, or spiritual, or 
whether it resulted from a simple mental vision. We 
shall not seek to determine its exterior nature, but 
we wish to know if, in the other world, there is an 
essential entity representing the active force, with- 
out which not one of these phenomena could be 
produced. 

The fact of determining the day and the hour of 
death is a feat beyond human powers, and auto- 
suggestion cannot furnish its explanation. A definite 
fact announced by a definite individual, even sup- 
posing that this agent be only an image perceived 
by the subconsciousness, necessitates the interven- 
tion of an intelligence which has created the image 



122 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

as in a mirror. Whether the message be seen or 
heard, whether it be expressed by a vision or by 
automatic writing, from the moment that it con- 
tains correct information unknown to everyone 
present, we are, indeed, obliged to conclude that a 
foreign intelligence is the determining cause of these 
phenomena. 

There is another fact quoted from Human Per- 
sonality, by Frederick Myers, Vol. II, p. 244. 

"It concerns a lady, Eliza Mannors (pseudonym). 
This lady, whom the author had known during her 
life, having been dead a certain time, manifested 
herself by automatic writing the day after the death 

of her uncle, a certain Mr. F . She described 

an incident tending to prove fully that she had really 
been present at the death-bed of her uncle." 

Myers in his work cites the report given in the 
Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, 
Vol. XII, p. 378, of which a summary follows here: 

"The notice of his death was inserted in a morning 
paper in Boston, and I had read it while going to 
a seance of Mrs. Piper. At this seance the first 
message came to us, against all expectation, from 
Mrs. Eliza. She explained in clear and definite terms 

that F was there near her, but that he could 

not express himself. She desired to recount how 

she had assisted F in drawing him to her. She 

said that she had been beside his death-bed, had 
talked with him, and repeated to me what she had 
said. She expressed herself in an unusual manner 
and specified that she had been heard and recognized 
by him. 

"All this was confirmed in detail in the sole way 



THE MOTIVE AGENTS 123 

then possible, through an intimate friend of Mrs. 
Eliza and myself, and a friend likewise of the nearest 

living relative of Mr. F . I showed the report 

of the seance to my friend and to another of his 
relatives who had been near the death-bed. 

"A day or two afterward the latter declared spon- 
taneously that in his last hours Mr. F had seen 

Eliza, that she had spoken with him, and he re- 
peated what she had said. 

"The communication that this relative reported to 
my friend was the same that I had received from 
Mrs. Eliza during Mrs. Piper's trance; and what 
had occurred at the bedside of the dying man was 
entirely unknown to me." 

I will conclude these illustrations, having no in- 
tention to prove the case, but simply to show how, 
in eliminating, little by little, the insufficient hypo- 
theses one may create for himself a certainty con- 
cerning communications from the other world. 

In a spiritual influx, a telepathic influence, creat- 
ing automatic obedience in the organs, lies the normal 
interpretation of true hallucinations and automa- 
tisms. To sum up, experience proves that psychic 
phenomena have their source in a new force which 
manifests consciousness in all degrees. The motive 
agents of a table that rises without contact may 
be, turn by turn, elementary consciousness, the con- 
sciousness of a living person, surrounding influences, 
actions of the deceased or of occult entities, serving 
unconsciously as a mirror to our psychic powers, 
still inadequately studied. 

Automatic writing emanates equally from lower 
physiology, influenced by surrounding forces which 
are difficult to define but which in certain cases give 



124 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

proof of intelligence and knowledge surpassing our 
grasp and which sometimes establish with great 
probability the identity of the deceased person who 
claims to communicate thus. 

Motive agents may act directly upon the brain, 
indirectly upon the sensory organs and mechanic- 
ally upon the motor and sensitive ganglion centers. 

The intellectual value of the phenomenon is in 
proportion to the degree of consciousness in the 
motive agent. 



CHAPTER VII 

TELEPATHIC APPARITIONS AND 
MATERIALIZED FORMS 

In the same hour came forth fingers of a man's 
hand, and wrote over against the candlestick 
upon the plaister of the wall of the King's palace; 
and the King saw the part of the hand that wrote. 

Daniel V, 5. 

After the inferior, but very significant phenom- 
ena of which we have hitherto spoken, it is fitting 
to mention apparitions. 

They are of two orders : First, telepathic ; second, 
those which result from a real presence. Telepathy 
calls forth a visual image, similar to reality, which 
would be to the uninitiated equivalent to an appari- 
tion. On the other hand, the phenomenon of 
animism, which exteriorizes a portion of the animistic 
substance, would be falsely called an hallucination. 

We have, therefore, two wholly different phe- 
nomena in conjunction with the telepathic vision, 
there are corporeal materializations. We have seen 
that the London Society of Psychical Research had 
instituted, under trustworthy conditions of control, 
a series of experimental tests intended to set aside 
all doubt concerning the transmission of images 
created by thought. Granting this, the "sensitive" 
who perceives and draws with exact detail the pic- 
ture of a small animal transmitted by an agent, may 

125 



120 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 





<r^ 



4A 



TELEPATHIC APPARITIONS 127 

be considered as having had an apparition of the 
lowest degree. 

It is under the same influence, that of a distant 
agent, that a woman sees her husband at the moment 
when he falls upon the battlefield. Many incidents 
of this nature are known to have occurred, and 
although they depend for credence upon the testi- 
mony of witnesses, their reality is undoubted. 

Here, then, a relation may be established between 
an apparition and the experimental transmission of 
thought. Apparitions themselves have been success- 
fully produced experimentally. Stainton Moses re- 
solved one evening to appear to Z. who was three 
miles away. He succeeded fully, and a few weeks 
later renewed the experiment with the same success. 
(Telepathic Hallucinations, p. 37.) Mr. S. H. B. 
having determined with all the power of his being 
to appear in a bedroom on the second floor where 
two persons of his acquaintance were sleeping, three 
miles away, was perceived standing near the bed 
of one. She awakened her sister who also saw him. 

These ladies, the Verity sisters, were interviewed 
by the authors of Phantasms of the Living; they 
gave explicit testimony and Gurney adds : "Miss 
Verity is a very exact and conscientious witness. 
She does not like the supernatural, but rather fears 
and dislikes it — above all, in this particular form." 

Gurney asked Mr. S. H. B. to repeat the experi- 
ment after warning her in advance. This was done, 
and Miss Verity, while fully awake, saw the ap- 
parition distinctly in her room. 

It may be seen from this example, that an ap- 
parition is produced by the act of an extraneous 
will, that it is not always due to the illusion of an 



128 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

overheated brain, and that it is a far cry to the 
ghost stories which are used to discredit apparitions. 
The following is a case of apparition willed by a 
living person (Telepathic Hallucinations, Case IX 5 
p. 38): 

"I was living in Scotland with an aunt who was 
very dear to me, while my mother and sisters were 
in Germany. Each year I went to Germany to see 
my family. It happened that for two years I had 
not been able to visit them as had been my custom. 
I decided suddenly to leave for Germany, letting 
my family know nothing of my intention. I had 
never gone to them in early spring. I had no time 
to inform them of my plan by letter, and I did 
not wish to send a telegram for fear of alarming 
my mother. The idea came to me to wish with all 
my will to appear to one of my sisters, as a way of 
announcing my arrival. I thought of them with 
all possible intensity for a few moments only. I 
desired with all my power to be seen by one of them, 
and I myself experienced a vision which half-trans- 
ported me to my family. I concentrated my thoughts 
for about ten minutes only, I think. I set out by 
steamboat from Leith one Saturday evening toward 
the end of April, 1859, and it was about six o'clock 
of that same evening that I willed to appear be- 
fore some member of my family. I reached the 
house near six o'clock in the morning the following 
Tuesday, and entered the house without being seen, 
for the vestibule had just been swept and the entrance 
door was open. I entered the room where one of 
my sisters was standing with her back to the door. 
She turned as she heard the door open, stared at 
me fixedly, grew pale and dropped what she held 
in her hand. I had said nothing, but now spoke: 
'It is I. Why are you so frightened?' She re- 



TELEPATHIC APPARITIONS 129 

plied, 'I thought I was seeing you as Stinchen 
(another of my sisters) saw you Saturday.' 

"In answer to my questions, she told me how on 
Saturday evening about six o'clock, my sister had 
distinctly seen me come through a door into her 
room, open another door into my mother's room 
and close that door behind me. She hurried after 
what she thought was I, calling my name. She was 
absolutely shocked when she did not see me with 
my mother. They looked everywhere but naturally 
could not find me. My mother was greatly wrought 
up over the occurrence, as she feared I must be 
dying. 

"The sister who had seen me (that is, my appari- 
tion) had gone out the morning of my arrival. I 
seated myself upon the steps to await her return 
and note the effect upon her of seeing my real self. 
When she raised her eyes and saw me on the stair- 
way, she called me and fainted. My sister had 
seen nothing supernatural before or since, and I 
have not renewed these experiments, nor shall I ever 
do so, for my sister who was first to see me when 
I really came to the house fell seriously ill as a 
result of the shock she had undergone." 

J. M. Russell. 

This example makes it clear that an apparition 
has none of the characteristics attributed to hal- 
lucination. They are two totally different phe- 
nomena, one of them, an hallucination, having its 
source in the subject, while the other, an apparition, 
emanates from an active exterior agent. 

When the person who appears as an apparition 
does not act consciously, he is not in his normal 
state, but in a state of natural or hypnotic sleep, 



130 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

in a crisis of approaching death or a comatose con- 
dition. 1 

The cases of spontaneous apparitions are not 
less instructive, and are due to an identical cause; 
that is, lacking an intentional effort, it is a special 
excitation of the subject which lends his psychic 
power this extraordinary activity perceived by a 
"sensitive" and felt wherever his desire leads. 

Case 200. 2 — A young man was seen upon the 
lawn of his home in England, while he himself was 
in Australia. Because of this apparition he was 
thought to be dead. But upon his return the young 
man said that he had been seriously ill, and that 
during his delirium had begged to be carried out 
under the large cedar on the lawn. He had then 
seemed to see the place as distinctly as he now 
saw it upon his return. 

Apparitions, like the phenomena of raps, are 
most often manifested spontaneously around the 
dying. 

It would be interesting to determine, in each case, 
if the apparition had preceded or followed death. 
But we cannot dilate upon this subject; those who 
might wish to go deeper should consult the work 
by Mr. Gabriel Delanne, Les Apparitions Material- 
isees des vivants et des morts (Materialized Appari- 
tions of the Living and the Dead). 3 

Let us now consider material apparitions. Skep- 
tics insist that the spiritists draw their affirmations 

i See Telepathic Hallucinations, p. 266. 

2 Resume' from Phantasms of the Living, Vol. I, p. 540. 

3 This documentation is both enlightening and abundant. 



TELEPATHIC APPARITIONS 131 

from nothingness, but as a matter of fact all the 
scholars of the Century have been challenged to 
take account of the matter for themselves. The in- 
credulous do not like to hear of the documents 
gathered by the Dialectic Society of London, by 
Sir William Crookes, Professor Charles Richet, 
Lombroso, Morselli and others. But according to 
these witnesses fragmentary materialization is no 
longer contestable. 

There can be no doubt to-day that the existence 
at least of materialized fluidic members has been 
verified experimentally, whether the psychic body 
really represents the mold upon which gather the 
particles of matter that cause its visibility, or 
whether this exteriorization of suggestible and mal- 
leable substance indeed espouses the forms of 
thought. A beginning of materialization would be 
a possible explanation of raps and table lifting. 

This conviction was some time ago reached by 
Dr. Ochorowicz, a learned physician, whose report 
published as early as 1895 gives the following con- 
clusion : 

The hypothesis of a fluidic double (astral body) 
•which, under certain conditions, is detached from the 
body of the medium, seems necessary for an explana- 
tion of the majority of phenomena. According to 
this theory, the movement of objects without con- 
tact would be produced by the fluidic members of 
the medium. 1 

It was evident in the case of the medium Eusapia 
Paladino that her muscular activity and contrac- 

i Conclusions of Dr. Ochorowicz after the stances of War- 
saw, in The Outward Manifestation of Motivity by Albert de 
Rochas. 



132 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

tions were in correlation with the gestures of the 
fluidic member. Well-controlled experiments have 
proved that the fluidic organ is often manifested 
in visible form as hands, feet or heads. 

Proof of this is set forth in the testimony: 

William Crookes. 1 — I shall merely choose a few 
of the many instances in which I have seen the 
hands of the fluidic organ in full light. A small 
beautiful hand rose from a dining-room table and 
offered me a flower. It thrice appeared and dis- 
appeared giving me every opportunity to convince 
myself that the apparition was as real as my own 
hand. This manifestation occurred in the light, 
in my own room, while I was holding the hands 
and feet of the medium. 

More than once I have seen an object begin to 
move, then a luminous mist forming round about it, 
which condensing, took shape and changed into a 
perfectly modeled hand. All those present saw the 
hand at that moment. This hand is not always 
merely a hand; sometimes it is animated and very 
graceful, with moving fingers and the flesh ap- 
parently as human as that of any of the spectators. 
At wrist or arm, the hand grows vaporous, vanish- 
ing into a luminous mist. 

I have held one of these hands in mine with a 
determination not to let it go. No attempt or 
effort was made to escape my hold, but little by 
little the hand seemed to dissolve into vapor, and in 
this way slipped from my grasp. 

Examples of this sort of materialization are 
numerous, and I wish to give the testimony of Ch. 
Richet. 

1 W. Crookes, New Experiments upon Psychic Force, 1897. 
R6sum6, p. 161. 



TELEPATHIC APPARITIONS 133 

With this physiologist the proofs are somewhat 
more diffuse, for he analyzes endlessly. He wishes 
to foresee every obstacle and, as he declares, to be 
twenty times sure. 

The control, more than the phenomenon itself, 
absorbs his attention; such careful precautions are 
taken that it would be impossible to add more. 
Richet would not be sure of having securely held a 
hand, if at the interesting moment, his attention had 
not been as concentrated upon this hand as upon 
the phenomenon. 

But it is preferable to quote Richet: 

"It is clear that when I say a very distinct hand, 
I presuppose that all possible chicanery has been 
considered. A vague contact is not a hand; the 
sensation of a stump or palm is not enough. By a 
very distinct hand I mean a hand that is perfectly 
formed, the fingers of which may be felt, a hand 
which is capable of pinching the arm, pulling the 
hair or beard, in a word, of giving such sensations 
as only a hand may give. This is living, animated, 
absolutely identical with a human hand. / have 
made this experiment; and, besides successful ex- 
periments in Rome, I succeeded four times on the 
Island of Roubaud. Upon one occasion, I held in 
one of my hands both of Eusapia's and raised my 
other hand very high in the air. The hand which 
appeared to us caught two of my fingers, pulled at 
them strongly and after having pulled them, tapped 
sufficiently loudly upon the back of my hand for 
everyone to hear." 1 

"However," continues Richet, "I am not the only 
one who has thus been touched by a distinct hand, 
while holding both Eusapia's hands." 

i L' Exteriorization de la MotricitS, pp. 183-188. 



134 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

"On July 9th, Ochorowicz was touched on the 
back by a very distinct hand while he held Eusapia's 
two hands." 

"On July 21st, Lodge, holding both of Eusapia's 
hands, was distinctly touched upon the shoulder." 

"On July 26th, while holding both hands of the 
Medium, I felt a large hand stroking my head." 

All these quotations are connected with a series 
of experiments carried on at Carqueranne, and the 
Island of Roubaud by Charles Richet, who devoted 
his vacation in 1894 to this problem. Those present 
were Mr. and Mrs. Sidgwick, Mr. and Mrs. Oliver 
Lodge, Mr. J. Ochorowicz, Mr. Frederick Myers, 
Baron de Schrenk (Notzing of Munich) and Dr. 
Segard, Chief Surgeon of the French Navy. 

The evidence of Charles Richet concludes thus : 

"That which makes an experiment of this kind 
instructive, and to my mind absolutely decisive, is 
that we must admit either a tactile hallucination, 
which seems to be absurd, or a practical joke on the 
part of one of the audience, which is inconceivable. 
Or else we must concede it to have been — and this 
is the conclusion I have reached — something like 
the materialization of a living hand. This conclu- 
sion I accept in despair of a cause, and I resign 
myself to it with deep reluctance." 

Why this reluctance? 

It is because Mr. Richet declared in the beginning 
that to him these facts were absurd? 

Surely, these facts are not absurd; they prove 
once more that we have a fluidic body, dependent 
both upon mind and matter. These experiments are 
instructive and offer a basis for the study of ani- 
mistic physiology. 



TELEPATHIC APPARITIONS 135 

There is a time for all things. To-day there is 
not a man, however unacquainted with the facts he 
may be, who can deny the formation of members, 
materialized outside the organs of the medium. 

Scholars have seen the results we obtained with 
patient effort. But once having seen, we must prove 
by experiment. There has been no failure here. 
We said to ourselves, since these hands which have 
been visible to the most skeptical, have an appear- 
ance of objectivity, we can perhaps preserve proofs 
of this objectivity by securing prints of them, photo- 
graphs or molds. Just such evidences have been 
secured. 

But this is a work which can be effected only 
after a long preparation. Observation requires 
endless patience, for the phenomenon does not de- 
velop at the first stroke; there are three factors in 
its production — the medium, the audience, and the 
occult force. Their cooperation cannot be secured 
save after long sittings held intimately in the course 
of which the forces have become tractable. 

Newcomers, who ask to be invited to the first 
sitting, will not obtain the great experimental proofs 
in less time than was necessary for William Crookes, 
Charles Richet, and Lombroso to attain a convic- 
tion. The moral and scientific value of the experi- 
menters is the sole guarantee of the value of the 
experiments. The materialization of a hand is not 
a mechanical function and only those who are in 
the good graces of the medium and (let us not fear 
to state it) of the occult force, will obtain permis- 
sion to grasp this hand and to use the devices for 
control. 

It seemed at first that the most delicate control 



136 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

to propose, in view of manifestations so fleeting, 
would be to secure the imprint of the hand in flour 
or smoke-black. This testimony, added to that of 
sight and touch, would refute the hypothesis, for- 
merly advanced, of hallucination on the part of the 
audience. 

Zoellner tried this experiment with the medium 
Slade, when the latter came to Leipsig in 1877. 1 

An attempt to secure foot-prints succeeded with- 
out contact of Slade, although the medium had pre- 
dicted that this would be impossible. Zoellner placed 
sheets of paper, prepared with lamp-black inside 
a folding slate and placed the slate upon his knees 
in order to keep it in view. Five minutes later, in 
a well-lighted room, all hands resting upon the 
table, Zoellner remarked that he had twice felt a 
pressure upon the slate lying on his knees. Three 
raps upon the table having announced that all was 
over, the slate was opened and two imprints, one 
of the right foot, the other of the left, were found 
upon the paper. 

"My readers may judge," said Zoellner, "that it 
is impossible for me, after having witnessed these 
facts, to consider Slade an impostor or a prestidigi- 
tator." 2 

The first idea of molding the materialized forms 
belonged to Mr. Denton, professor of Geology, well 
known in America, who died in 1883. His medium 
was Mrs. Hardy. All this chapter of Aksakof (pp. 
127-172) should be studied in full, as it contains 
a complete history of the question. 

i Eugene Nus. Things of the Other World (Choses de 
L 'autre Monde), p. 336. 
2 lb. p. 338. 



TELEPATHIC APPARITIONS 137 

But history continues, or rather recommences ; all 
modern scholars have been able to obtain some of 
these molds which furnish positive and conclusive 
proofs of the phenomenon of materialization. 

In 1889, the Spanish Doctor, Manuel Otero 
Acevedo, armored with incredulity, came to Naples 
expressly to examine Eusapia. He demanded an 
imprint in clay. The report of this case is found 
in the work of Dr. de Rochas. 1 

While in full light the table replied by raps and 
Eusapia suddenly inspired, said to Otero: "Take 
this vessel full of clay, put it opposite me on this 
chair, and indicate the spot where you wish the 
phenomenon to appear." The clay was placed about 
two yards from her and carefully examined by Dr. 
Otero, who covered it with his white handkerchief 
and indicated the spot. We all watched Eusapia. 
She thrust out her right arm convulsively, turned 
her hand in the direction of the clay and, extending 
three fingers, made an indefinable movement with 
them and said: "It is done." 

Raising the handkerchief, we found the imprint 
of three fingers at the precise point indicated by 
Otero. 

At this evident, palpable, overwhelming proof of 
a supernatural power, of an invisible, fluidic force, 
emanating from this woman, issuing from all her 
pores and from her magician fingers, but submissive 
to a will foreign to humanity, Professor Otero, Mr. 
Lassi and the engineer Agri, stared at one another 
in stupefaction. They respectfully thanked the in- 
visible John who replied instantly by greeting them 

i De Rochas : Outward Manifestation of Motivity, p. 12. Com- 
munication of Chiaia. 



138 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

with four heavy raps upon the table in the middle 
of the room. 

Thus the seance closed. 

Another skeptic, Dr. Vizani Scozzi, of Florence, 
obtained a similar impress. 

Chevalier Chiaia secured a whole series of imprints 
in modeling clay. In the work of de Rochas, 
numerous specimens are found. Ochorowicz, himself, 
obtained a proof under conditions in which veri- 
fication was certain. 

Finally, as one cannot too often multiply testi- 
mony, we shall also cite the seances of Montfort 
l'Amaury, the records of which are found in the 
work of G. de Fontenay. 1 

I shall not concern myself here with the detractors 
who claim that the operation is no more difficult 
than the making of an omelette in a hat. Since 
the completeness of the control could not be under- 
stood by their feeble brains, they would never com- 
prehend that the magician could not succeed with 
his omelette under the same conditions of absolute 
surveillance. 

But one might suppose that the medium had 
stretched out her hand and placed her head in con- 
tact with the clay prepared for the purpose. This 
supposition, which seems natural to one who has not 
considered the conditions required for securing a 
mold, is not in the least probable. 

Considerable pressure is required for the penetra- 
tion of a form, whether the prepared substance be 
putty or potter's clay, and flesh is not able to bear 

iG. de Fontenay: A Propos d'Eusapia Paladino. (Soci6t6 
d'Sditions Scientifiques, Paris, 1898) and at the close of which 
a magnificent imprint was made jipon glazier's cement. 



TELEPATHIC APPARITIONS 139 

this without deformation. A face pressed into putty 
would show flattened lips, a twisted or foreshortened 
nose. A cast can be obtained only by the process of 
the molder. 

The experiment with the hands is easy to make; 
in thrusting the fist into clay there was no such 
result as that obtained with Eusapia. I, myself, 
secured through her, the cast of a closed fist, and 
a clever molder on the rue Racine said he could 
not understand how this imprint could have been 
made. 

In accomplishing this it was necessary for the 
fluidic member, after a maximum of effort, to de- 
tach itself from the mold by dissolving in order to 
escape without deranging the substance. It is for 
this reason, also, that the paraffine mold was in- 
vented, which, in the form of a fragile glove, makes 
it possible to obtain a unique cast, defying imita- 
tion. 

Aksakoff published the conclusive report of a 
sculptor, charged with valuation of these objects, 
and the same appraisement was made with Eusapia. 
The eminent sculptor, Giuseppe Ronda, having lent 
his aid to Chevalier Chiaia, was convinced that it 
would be impossible to obtain such specimens by the 
direct process and became a confirmed spiritualist. 

The operation, even in potter's earth, is not as 
simple as the layman might believe. A form is 
not drawn in this clay as a moist stamp is printed 
upon paper. This has been confirmed by de Rochas, 
who, following his report upon the seances of Naples 
in 1895, wrote: "In order to silence the doubts 
which arose in his mind, the author wished to ask 
counsel of persons who afforded the best guarantees 



140 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

of ability. An eminent young artist, Mr. George 
Kiewerk, a painter and sculptor of Florence, made a 
series of futile experiments in his studio, to repro- 
duce these imprints in potter's clay." 

An experiment made by Crookes tends to demon- 
strate that the fluidic organ is not always similar to 
that of the medium, but that the hand thus formed 
may borrow its momentary substance from other 
parts of the body. 

Crookes placed a small quantity of aniline dye 
upon the surface of the mercury prepared for the 
experiment. Aniline is a powerful dye and Crookes' 
hands bore traces of it for a long time. Katie King 
plunged her fingers into the color, yet the fingers of 
the medium were found unstained. Traces of the 
aniline were found, however, upon her arm. 

These experiments have never, I believe, occurred 
in a good light, as obscurity seems indispensable to 
the firm concretion of fluidic members. 

But we must not forget that, in default of direct 
observation, it has been possible to bring into light 
and watch effectively the hands or feet of the 
medium, so as to give assurance that the imprint was 
indeed obtained without fraudulent intervention. 

More recently experimenters have contrived ex- 
traordinary devices and preparations for control- 
ling experiments. These have not prevented the 
phenomena, but have given rise to the conviction 
that nothing equals the value of direct observation. 

We read in the Annals of Psychical Science for 
1907, an account by Mr. Barzini, an Italian journal- 
ist, Editor of Corriere della serra, who, at different 
times seized the mysterious hands that touched 
him. He wrote (p. 154) : 



TELEPATHIC APPARITIONS 141 

"The impression I received was very strange. 
Those hands did not escape, they dissolved, as it 
were. I missed them in my hands as though they 
had collapsed. One might have called them hands 
which grew soft, and melted away very rapidly after 
having attained the highest degree of energy and 
an absolutely life-like appearance at the moment 
of action." 

Farther on, he wrote: 

"A mandolin which had been placed upon a bed 
in the cabinet after having produced sounds at a 
distance, moved to the table where, in complete isola- 
tion, it began to play. It was entirely visible to 
all the audience. 1 

"We touched all around to assure ourselves of 
the isolation of the mandolin. Eusapia was held 
by her hands, one of which rested upon the edge 
of the table, the other upon her knee, and the 
mandolin continued to play. Of course there was 
no melody, but the chords vibrated strongly. The 
experimentors placed their hands a few feet above 
the strings and felt them vibrate more than ever. 
Prof. Morselli seized the neck of the mandolin with 
his left hand and the instrument quietly continued 
its intermittent arpeggios, taking them up each time 
as the experimenters desired. But each sound cor- 
responded exactly to a movement of the medium's 
fingers which, at a distance, made the motions of 
playing, and finally picked out the last notes upon 
the forehead of Prof. Morselli. 

1 We underline this because all experimentors who put 
patience and perseverance into their work, finally obtain 
phenomena in a good light, whereas the detractors always 
claim that these performances take place in darkness. This, 
parrot like, they assert repeatedly, despite everything. 



142 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

"It is needless to say that the mandolin did not 
belong to Eusapia, but was purchased by the ex- 
perimenters, 'and,' said Mr. Barzini, 'it was a simple 
instrument incapable of fraud.' " 

Again in the Annals of Psychical Science, we 
read (March number, 1907, p. 212), the account 
of a seance held under the direction of Prof. Lom- 
broso. Signor Mucchi, collaborator of la Stampa, 
speaks at length of the precautions taken to pre- 
vent all chicanery. "Moreover," he adds, "none of 
the most important phenomena produced could give 
rise to the least suspicion of trickery. They are 
all of such nature that one could not imitate them 
even by the most skillful sleight-of-hand." 

. . . "One of the spectators was asked to take a 
mandolin that was in the room and to place it upon 
a table upon which there was no clay. This gentle- 
man encountered, in his turn, mysterious hands which 
would and would not permit him to enter. Once 
he had seized the mandolin, he feared to see it 
snatched away and placed it quickly upon the inner 
table with the strings turned down. 

"The mandolin was at once inexplicably raised and 
carried to the experimental table, where in full sight 
of all present, it played of itself; at first one string 
at a time, with a clear sound as though produced 
by the pick of a nail, then with all the strings as 
if a finger swept over them. One of us was asked 
to play the mandolin upon the fingers of Eusapia; 
the sound of the string corresponded to each touch, 
and if the gesture were badly made, the resultant 
sound was incomplete and strident. 

"Finally, a hand which suddenly materialized 



TELEPATHIC APPARITIONS 143 

seized the instrument by the neck and placed it 
upon the shoulder of the player, and there, close 
to his face, the strings vibrated and strummed, 
while the hand dissolved and disappeared once more." 

Annals, July, 1907. Report of Dr. J. Venzano: 

"I, myself, seized a hand during a seance at the 
home of Signor Avellino, in the month of June, 
1901. It was a rather large hand of a masculine 
type. I grasped it firmly with the intention of 
holding it as long as possible. After a while, al- 
though I had increased the force of my grip, the 
hand slipped freely from mine in an instant, as if 
it had suddenly diminished in size." 

We feel that the materialization of hands is now 
a proven fact. 

Must we still answer objections? 

I do not think it necessary, because the objec- 
tions are inexhaustible, and their authors betray 
in their evident prejudice an absolute ignorance of 
the conditions controlling experiments. The rec- 
ords of experimenters have already met all of these 
objections. 

Moreover, how can we reply to detractors who 
ever repeat, parrot-fashion, the same thing, answer- 
ing not at all the very simple statements urged 
upon them, such as that made by William Crookes 
as many as forty years ago. 

"I can only indicate here a few of the more 
striking facts, all of which, it would be well to 
remember, took place under conditions in which all 
deception was made impossible. It is absurd to 
attribute these results to trickery, for I will recall 



144 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

to my readers that what I here report did not occur 
in the home of a medium, but in my own house 
where it was quite impossible to prepare in advance 
for fraud of any kind. A medium walking about 
my dining-room, where I was seated with several 
other persons who watched her closely, could not 
fraudulently play an accordion that I held in my 
own hands with the keys down, or cause it to float 
about the room playing. She could not bring with 
her devices to stir the window curtains or raise the 
Venetian blinds eight feet; to tie a knot in a hand- 
kerchief and place it in a distant corner of the 
room ; to sound the keys of a piano at a distance ; 
to cause a card case to fly about the apartment; 
to raise a carafe and a goblet above the table; to 
make a coral necklace rise upon one end; to open 
a fan and fan the company, or to set in motion a 
pendulum enclosed in a glass case, solidly sealed to 
the wall." 1 

It is interesting to compare this testimony with 
the present-day words of Professor Morselli, spoken 
forty years later. 

"Mr. Barzini and I have not found it difficult 
to hold and watch the hands of this woman: after 
a little practice, we succeeded in holding securely 
her four extremities. At the same time we watched 
her head (almost always visible) and paid attention 
to the phenomena. Not every one is able to ac- 
complish this many-sided muscular tactile, and in- 
tellectual labor. But I am sure that each time 
I was charged with surveillance, Eusapia did not 
attempt, aside from one or two simple efforts, the 
famous trick of substitution of the hand (which, 

i Researches upon the Phenomena of Spiritualism, William 
Crookes. 



TELEPATHIC APPARITIONS 145 

moreover, does not explain the twentieth part of 
the Paladinian phenomena) ; also she could not have 
stroked my brow, pulled my mustache, or played 
upon a trumpet by using her feet, as some critics 
have foolishly imagined! 

"As for the rest the control used in spiritual 
seances is sometimes rather ridiculous : it wearies 
those who must exercise it and certainly prevents 
Eusapia from giving the new and spontaneous mani- 
festations which might be very remarkable through 
her mediumship. I would prefer to have the medium 
free for the most extraordinary phenomena of mate- 
rialization. I have had astounding results when 
Eusapia was bound upon a small bed, but who 
knows what energy she might manifest if she were 
left to the automatism of her subconscious self? All 
modification of habitual technique may be a check 
upon fraud, it is true, but it is also a hindrance and 
sometimes a complete preventive of mediumistic 
phenomena." 

I believe that we have now established as a fact 
the reality of materialized forms, and shall deal in 
the following chapter with the phenomena of com- 
plete materializations. 



CHAPTER VIII 
COMPLETE MATERIALIZATIONS 

The greatest hallucination is to believe that one 
knows all the laws of nature. 

Eugene Nus. 

Let us now consider the reports of certain experi- 
menters concerning the production of complete ma- 
terialization in controlled seances. We have just 
read Professor Morselli's affirmation of having seen 
these great phenomena when Eusapia was bound 
upon a couch. As his testimony is particularly valu- 
able we sought the report of one of these seances 
to which he alludes, and found it in the former 
Revue des Etudes Psychiques (Review of Psychical 
Studies, Sept., 1902), Edited at that time by Mr. 
C. de Vesine. That was the hey-day of the medium- 
ship of Eusapia Paladino, whose power has since 
declined. 

Seance of Eusapia at Genoa, in 1902. Abridged 
account by Dr. J. Venzano, of Genoa. 

"A small rectangular table of white wood was 
placed about twenty centimeters from the cabinet; 
about a meter from it was arranged a double row 
of chairs. A piano was set diagonally in a corner 
of the room which was brilliantly lighted by a gas 
chandelier, equipped with Auer burners. 

146 



COMPLETE MATERIALIZATIONS 147 

"Before beginning the seance Madame Paladino, 
the medium, was rigorously examined. In our 
presence some of her clothing was removed, but the 
more detailed inspection was conducted by Mmes. 
Avellino and Montaldo in another room where the 
medium undressed completely. 

"The medium then re-clothed herself in the presence 
of the two ladies, who did not leave her for an in- 
stant and accompanied her directly to the experi- 
mental room. 

"The seance began at half-past ten o'clock. 
Madame Paladino seated herself at one end of the 
table, at her right Prof. Morselli, at her left, Boz- 
zano; each laid a hand and foot upon one hand and 
one foot of the medium. 

"Almost at once the table was set in motion. The 
medium invited Dr. Morselli to place his free hand 
and arm upon her knees, in order to be assured of 
their immobility. The table rose more than forty 
centimeters, remaining suspended in air for almost 
a minute. 

"Note that during the levitation, the hands of the 
spectators were all raised; only the right hand of 
the medium, joined to Morselli's left, barely touched 
the surface of the table, while her left hand, free, 
was also lifted. 

"Shortly afterward there was a second levitation 
of the same duration. Almost immediately Eusapia 
rose, lifted the curtains of the cabinet and lay on 
her back upon the bed, to the bars of which Prof. 
Morselli and Signor Avellino fastened her firmly. 
They attached her wrists to the iron bars at the 
sides by means of a cord with many knots; they 
then passed the cord twice around the waist of the 



148 ; PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

medium, securely knotting the ends of the rope to 
the bars. They lowered the light, but so little that 
one could still read, as Prof. Morselli remarked, the 
smallest print on a paper. 

"After about a quarter of an hour, the table, which 
stood a meter from us and twenty centimeters from 
the cabinet, began to move by itself. At first, it 
rose upon two feet, giving several raps. 

"Sometime later the curtains stirred, as though 
they had been parted by two hands, and a large 
opening formed in the upper part, in which we could 
all observe the face of a young woman, whose head 
and that part of her body which was visible were 
surrounded by pure white drapery. The head seemed 
enveloped by several circular bands of this material, 
which left visible only a small oval portion of the 
face, a sufficient portion, however, for one to see 
exactly the eyes, nose, mouth and upper part of the 
chin. 

"The apparition remained visible to everyone for 
almost a minute. As Mr. Bozzano was pointing 
out that we saw only a part of the face, we noticed 
the finger-tips of two hands draw aside the drapery, 
thus displaying her form more clearly and com- 
pletely. Before disappearing, the figure bent her 
head in salutation, and threw us a kiss, the sound 
of which was distinctly heard by everyone. 

"After a few moments of rest, the table began 
again its automatic movements. Then the curtains 
parted once more, as though they had been opened 
from within by two hands, leaving an ample space 
in which was seen the figure of a man with large 
head and strong shoulders, surrounded also by white 
drapery. The head was enveloped in such a manner 



COMPLETE MATERIALIZATIONS 149 

that through the light fabric one could see the pink 
color of the face, the outlines of the nose, cheek- 
bones, and chin. Bozzano and Morselli declared 
they had noticed, also, a heavy beard upon the chin. 
This man's face remained visible for a minute, at 
least. 

"It leaned toward us several times, and before 
withdrawing, sent us several loud kisses, accompanied 
by expressive movements of the head. 

"When the curtains were drawn again we heard 
hands clapping inside the cabinet. 

"At this moment, we also heard Eusapia's voice, 
calling Professor Morselli in a plaintive tone. He 
went into the cabinet and found her in the same 
position in which she had been fastened. The medium 
in a trance, with evident signs of suffering, was com- 
plaining that her wrists were painfully bound. The 
professor finally loosened her wrists with much diffi- 
culty, because of the many complicated knots. Mme. 
Paladino then remained fastened only by feet and 
waist. 

"Signor Bozzano noticed that the professor, being 
seated directly beneath the chandelier, was obliged, 
when watching the medium, to shade his eyes from 
the light coming from above. He asked Signor Avel- 
lino, therefore, kindly to give his place to the pro- 
fessor. This was done, so that Dr. Morselli occupied 
the chair of Mr. Avellino. 

"When everyone was in his place, it was observed 
almost immediately, that the piano lid rose and fell 
automatically, causing a certain sound. 

"Almost at the same time, we became aware of the 
figure of a young woman in front of the curtain at 
the right, resembling somewhat the one of whom we 



150 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

have spoken above. The apparition nodded her head 
several times, bowing, as though in greeting to us. 
Finally she vanished. Oh this occasion, we were all 
struck by a new fact, rather important for those 
readers who will not hesitate to accuse us of 
hallucination. 

"We noticed that the figure in question, while lean- 
ing forward in such a way as to remain a certain 
distance from the wall, illumined by the gas light, 
threw her shadow upon the wall, a shadow that 
followed all the movements of this body which was 
evidently materialized. 

"In the following interval, Professor Morselli, re- 
quested by Eusapia, whose weak and plaintive voice 
reached us from within the cabinet, drew his chair 
close to the piano. 

"A few moments after, a new figure of a woman 
appeared from the same side of the mediumistic 
cabinet as that from which we had seen the preced- 
ing figure come. However, if this new apparition 
bore some analogy to the other, there were, never- 
theless, some points of difference. The white bands 
were wrapped about her head an extraordinary 
number of times; the outer edges projecting so far 
that the face seemed sunk in their depths. The 
trunk of the materialized form was swathed in as 
many folds, giving the impression of an Egyptian 
mummy. This materialized form was so near us 
that we were even enabled to conjecture with a cer- 
tain exactitude concerning the nature of the fabric. 
It seemed rather heavier than ordinary gauze and 
perhaps not as thick as muslin. The figure leaned 
forward, resting her elbow upon the piano top. Here 
again, we could observe a curious fact. The fore- 



COMPLETE MATERIALIZATIONS 151 

arm visible to us was evidently a stump, since the 
sleeve fell back for at last 30 centimeters down the 
front of the piano, to the lid of the keyboard. The 
apparition raised this partially formed member, 
several times, throwing on the wall a shadow, which 
followed its every motion. 

"The woman in the white bands had scarcely re- 
turned to the cabinet, when we heard anew the plaints 
of Mme. Paladino, who with redoubled insistence, 
was imploring Professor Morselli to free her from 
the bonds which hurt her. 

"When we had once more regained our places the 
curtains parted for some distance from the floor, 
and through a wide oval space appeared the figure 
of a woman, holding in her arms a little child and 
almost seeming to rock him. This woman, who 
might have been forty years of age, wore a white 
bonnet, embroidered in white; and this headdress, 
while covering the hair, left visible the features of a 
broad face, with lofty brow. The remaining part 
of her body, not concealed by the curtain, was cov- 
ered with white drapery. As concerns the child, 
from what we could judge by the development of 
the head and body, it might have been three years 
old. The little head was bare, with very short hair 
and was on a slightly higher level than the mother's. 

"The body of the child seemed enveloped in swad- 
dling clothes, also of light, white fabric. The eyes 
of the woman were raised, gazing with affection at 
the child, who held his head bent toward her. 

"The apparition lasted for more than a minute. 
We all rose and drew nearer so that we might follow 
the slightest motions. Before the curtain fell back, 
the woman leaned her head forward while the baby? 



152 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

bending down several times from right to left, fre- 
quently kissed her face, the childish sound of these 
kisses being distinctly heard. 

"Such is the scrupulously exact account of a seance 
whose importance may be easily imagined. The 
phenomena unfolded under conditions which abso- 
lutely circumvent all objections of the skeptics. The 
manifestations occurred in full light, in a chosen 
spot, carefully controlled and prepared by ourselves. 
The medium was subjected to a system of investiga- 
tions as complete as could be desired. 

"The medium was fastened in the cabinet in such 
a way as to defy the most carping criticism. . . . 

"Dr. J. Venzano." 

Such was the usual aspect of an experimental 
seance with Eusapia, when she was in full possession 
of her mediumistic powers. Naturally, the appear- 
ance of the phenomena changes with the experi- 
menters, since a phenomenon is not mechanical and 
each experimenter has his own ideas and proposes 
different conditions, by conceiving new apparatus. 

To-day Eusapia's mediumistic career is almost at 
an end; handicapped by the exactions of surveil- 
lance, her manipulations have not given the trans- 
cendent proofs that might have been obtained 
through her, if experimenters had continued to guide 
the seances along the path of spiritistic research. 
Yet there is little to regret, for Eusapia will have 
had the glory of triumphing over the unbelief of 
the scholars and have made possible the objective 
proof of manifestations of animism. Perhaps it is 
better that this first step was made in the beginning. 

In order to enter into spiritism and obtain the 



COMPLETE MATERIALIZATIONS 153 

presence of true entities, it is not wise to practice 
a method of control which is likely to kill or paralyze 
manifestation. One must approach ever so gently, 
by the mystic way. Personalities who may be identi- 
fied are not strong enough to resist those who re- 
pulse them with all the force of their skepticism. 
They come only by appeal. This complex question, 
however, would entangle us in a controversy which 
is out of place here. 

It is difficult to believe in the phenomenon, but 
belief in fraud is easy. I will not consider the 
question of fraud, as it would be an absolutely use- 
less diversion, since the acts of impostors and 
prestidigitators have no relation to a scientifically 
conducted examination. Moreover, as Morselli re- 
marks, the skeptics only reiterate objections which 
have been met conclusively a hundred times already. 

Therefore, we will recall the example of a famous 
materialization, for the benefit of the reader who 
cannot defend himself against these facile sugges- 
tions. It illustrates the fact that disbelief is never 
disarmed. 

It is the case of Katie King; a classic case, well 
supervised as evident as anything may be evident 
to the feeble human intelligence. It is a case of 
which the skeptics do not like to hear, because it 
hampers them and they would prefer to pass it over 
in silence. Having been unable to suppress it en- 
tirely, they disparage it, but by such clumsy assump- 
tions, such childish affirmations, that the ridicule 
rebounds upon them. 

When the medium has resisted triumphantly all 
control, they will tell you that she has cheated some- 
where else, at some time and under some other cir- 



154 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

cumstances. This might be contested but it diverts 
the discussion, and we pass it by. 

They forget that it is just in order to reply to 
such contentions that a system of control has been 
organized, confided to an arbiter whose verdict every 
one has agreed, in advance, to accept. It was under 
these conditions that William Crookes, who for 
many years had studied the whole series of phe- 
nomena, was made arbiter of the mediumship of 
Florence Cook. 

You will hear it said, even to-day, that the phan- 
tom of Katie King was seized in the arms of a spec- 
tator, which is true; and that Florence Cook was 
thus unmasked, which is false. 

An incident of this kind is always exploited by 
men who do not understand the question of medium- 
ship. William Crookes was appointed to arbitrate 
in this case. At this time it was held ridiculous 
to believe in phenomena: passions were roused; the 
hour was tense and Crookes was warned that his 
future as a scholar might be wrecked: we can well 
understand how necessary it was that he should be 
on guard. 

The following is the history of the case : "A phan- 
tom had been seized by a spectator, and a true 
phantom thus embraced could only dematerialize. 
This was not the opinion of the skeptics, who in 
that day knew only the phantoms of Robert Hou:lini, 
which a sword might pierce; the phantom at the 
time being only an intangible thing. When, there- 
fore, it was seized it could do nothing but demater- 
ialize, which it did. There followed an indescribable 
confusion, under cover of which speculations were 
given free rein. There were shouts and cries, and, 



COMPLETE MATERIALIZATIONS 155 

as nothing remained in the arms of the person who 
believed he had seized something, the critics spread 
the report that the medium had fled in the darkness. 
There was only one thing to do, to examine the state 
of the medium. The critics however, had none of 
these scruples; they proclaimed upon the housetops 
that the medium had escaped, which was a falsehood. 
We have the testimony of a high authority concern- 
ing this seance, the great naturalist Russel Wallace." 
We may refer to his narration, in which he certifies 
that the medium was found securely fastened in her 
bonds. 1 

The medium did what she should have done, she 
thought of the great scholar who was then studying 
spiristic facts, and promising to submit herself en- 
tirely to his control, asked his protection. 

Sir Russel Wallace states that William Crookes, 
having received permission, did what the skeptical 
gentleman had done without authority, that is, he 
took the spirit in his arms and declared it was evi- 
dently that of a living woman. 

However, this spirit form was not that of Miss 
Cook, nor of any human being, seeing that she ap- 
peared and disappeared in closed and carefully 
guarded rooms, in the private residence of William 
Crookes, as easily and completely as in the house 
of the medium herself. 

In an early letter addressed to the spiritualistic 
journals the scholar wrote in substance: 

"I am known to your readers, and they would 
believe, I trust, that I would not hurriedly adopt an 
opinion nor ask them to be of my mind after an 

1 Russel Wallace, Miracles and Modem Spiritualism, p. 252. 



156 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

insufficient proof. But what I will ask them is this: 
that those who are inclined to judge Miss Cook 
severely, may suspend judgment until I am able to 
produce definite proof, which I believe will be suffi- 
cient to solve the problem. 

"At the present time Miss Cook is devoting her- 
self exclusively to a series of private sittings, wit- 
nessed only by one or two of my friends and myself. 
These seances will probably last for several months 
and I have the promise that every proof I may de- 
sire will be given to me. These seances have only 
continued for a few weeks, but there have been 
enough to convince me completely of the sincerity 
and entire honesty of Miss Cook, and to give me 
full reason for believing that the promise so freely 
made by Katie will be kept. 

"All which I now ask, is that your readers will 
not hastily presume that whatever, at first sight, 
may seem doubtful, necessarily implies deception, 
and that they be willing to suspend judgment until 
I shall speak once more of these phenomena. 
"I am, etc. 

"William Crookes, 

"Feb. 3, 1874." 

After having experimented at length William 
Crookes finally wrote: "I am happy to say that I 
have at last obtained the absolute proof of which 
I spoke in the letter mentioned above." 

In the following terms he explains the precautions 
taken by him in the course of his experiments. 

"During these six months Miss Cook visited me 
frequently, often remaining an entire week. She 
brought with her only a small, unlocked satchel; 
during the day she was constantly in the company 
of Mrs. Crookes, myself, or some other member of 



COMPLETE MATERIALIZATIONS 157 

the family, and since she did not sleep alone, there 
were no opportunities for her to prepare anything, 
even of a less complete character, which might have 
played the role of Katie King. I, myself, had pre- 
pared and arranged my library, as well as the dark 
cabinet, and customarily after Miss Cook had dined 
and chatted with us she went straight to the cabinet 
and, at her request, I locked the second door, keep- 
ing the key during the seance." x 

The reader should keep in mind that the man who 
gives guarantee of these facts is a physician of the 
highest order, a man as experienced as Pasteur and 
Berthelot, a member of the Royal Society since 1856, 
and the author of well-known works upon Physics, 
Chemistry, Astronomy and Photography of the 
Heavens. The ingenious inventor of the photometer 
and of the spectral microscope, he also discovered 
Thallium and enlarged the domain of science by dis- 
covering radiant states whose effects upon matter 
are so formidable as to make possible photography 
through opaque bodies. Who is there, remembering 
all this and the testimony I have just cited, who 
would dare to contest that these conditions impose 
certainty ? 

However, there are still critics who, to-day, be- 
lieve that Miss Cook concealed her sister in a satchel 
and brought her into the house, hid her for six 
months from all the household, gave her bed and 
board, and in the face of the great scholar who 
exercised the strictest surveillance, continued suc- 
cessfully a stupid comedy for six months. Such 
credulity is revolting. 

This expose would not be complete if we did not 

iNew Experiments upon Psychic Force. 



158 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

give according to Crookes' own description the ac- 
count of a seance. A resume follows : 

"I pass now to the seance held yesterday evening 
at Hackney. Never has Katie appeared in such 
great perfection; for almost two hours she walked 
about the room in friendly conversation with those 
who were present. Several times she took my arm 
while walking, and the impression I received, that 
it was a living woman at my side and not a visitor 
from the other world, was so strong that the temp- 
tation to repeat a recent and curious experiment 
became almost irresistible. Realizing then, that if 
it were not a spirit beside me it was in any case, a 
lady, I asked her permission to take her in my arms 
in order to verify the interesting observations that 
a bold experimenter had recently made known. This 
permission was graciously given and I took advan- 
tage of it respectfully, as any gentleman would have 
done in the same circumstances. Mr. Volckman will 
be delighted to know that I can corroborate his 
assertion that the 'ghost,' which made no resistance, 
was a being as material as Miss Cook herself. But 
the sequel will show how wrong an experimenter 
may be, however careful his observations, in formu- 
lating an important conclusion when the proofs are 
not sufficient. 

"Katie then declared that on this occasion she 
felt able to show herself at the same time as Miss 
Cook. I lowered the gas, and with my phosphorus 
lamp entered the room which served as a cabinet. 
But beforehand I had asked one of my friends, who 
is a rapid stenographer, to note down all observa- 
tions I might make while in the cabinet. I know the 
importance of first impressions and did not wish to 
confide to my memory more than was necessary. His 
(notes are before me at this moment. 



COMPLETE MATERIALIZATIONS 159 

"I entered the room with precaution. It was 
dark and I groped for Miss Cook, finding her 
crouched upon the floor. Kneeling down, I let the 
air enter my lamp and by its light saw the young 
woman dressed in black velvet, as she had been at 
the beginning of the seance, and appearing com- 
pletely insensible. She did not stir when I took her 
hand and held the lamp near her face but she con- 
tinued to breathe quietly. Raising my lamp, I looked 
around me and saw Katie, who was standing close 
behind Miss Cook. She was clad in floating white 
drapery, as we had already seen her during the 
seance. Holding one of Miss Cook's hands in mine, 
and still kneeling, I raised and lowered the lamp, as 
much to illumine the whole figure of Katie as to 
convince myself fully that I really saw the true 
Katie, whom I had held in my arms a few moments 
ago, and not the phantom of a disordered brain. 
She did not speak but nodded her head in recogni- 
tion. Three different times I carefully examined 
Miss Cook, crouching before me, to assure myself 
that the hand I held was indeed that of a living 
woman, and thrice turned my lamp towards Katie 
to scrutinize her with sustained attention, until I 
had not the slightest doubt that she was really there 
before me. Finally Miss Cook made a slight move- 
ment, and at once Katie signed to me to go. I 
withdrew to another part of the cabinet and then 
lost sight of Katie, but I did not leave the room 
until Miss Cook was awakened and two of the as- 
sistants had entered with a light." 

Let us now consider the medium's point of view. 
What does she feel? What are her intimate sensa- 
tions? We possess a very valuable document, due 
to a society lady, Mme. d'Esperance, endowed with 
remarkable mediumistic powers. She has written a 



160 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

kind of autoscope, describing her physical and men- 
tal sensations during the production of materializa- 
tion phenomena. It was in a most accidental manner 
that this lady discovered the power she possessed. 
In an intimate gathering, one evening when a per- 
sistent rain prevented her friends from returning 
home, someone proposed to pass the time by at- 
tempting to hold a seance. Several persons offered 
themselves for the experiment, entering the dark 
cabinet; one fell asleep, another became frightened, 
finally the turn of Madame d'Esperance came, and 
we will let her take up the story. 1 

"I do not like to confess it but at that moment 
I was seized with something very much like fear and 
felt a keen desire to run toward the light and rejoin 
the group of singers ; however, I remained seated. 
I felt glued to my chair, fearing that this 'some- 
thing' would touch me and convinced that if it did 
I should utter piercing cries. I became alternately 
burning hot and frozen and would have given much 
to be on the other side of the curtains. I knew I 
had only to stretch out my hand to push them aside 
but I was a prey to an indescribable sensation of 
solitude and isolation which seemed to place me at 
a vast distance from the others. This strange emo- 
tion almost overcame my desire to be brave and I 
was on the point of rushing from the cabinet when 
a hand, touching my shoulder, obliged me to reseat 
myself. 

"Strangely enough this pressure, which in other 
circumstances would have overwhelmed me immeasur- 
ably, had the effect of calming my fever and fear." 

i/« Shadow Land (Au pays de l'ombre by E. d'Esperance), 
pp. 188-189. 



COMPLETE MATERIALIZATIONS 161 

Numerous forms appeared about Madame d'Es- 
perance; many of them, had the physical appearance 
of persons known to the spectators, but had no 
resemblance to the medium. However, there were 
also forms in her exact likeness. Thus she recounts 
on page 238: 

"I obtained permission to leave my seat in the 
cabinet and came slowly and with difficulty from 
behind the curtains, where a white figure was stand- 
ing. To my infinite surprise I found myself face 
to face with — myself; at least, so it seemed to me. 

"The materialized spirit was a little larger than I, 
and of more vivid complexion, her hair was longer, 
her features heavier and her eyes larger. Yet on 
looking at this face I thought I saw myself in a 
mirror, the resemblance was so great. 

"The spirit laid her hands upon my shoulders and 
gazing at me attentively murmured, 'Mignonne, ma 
petite.' (My dear little one)." 

This spirit, which appeared often, was called the 
French lady and was one of the rare apparitions 
capable of spea.king. The author said concerning 
her: "She was my particular friend, as we all knew, 
and came on my account, although she gave much 
less attention to me than to the other members of 
the society. The special role I had to play in the 
seances prevented her, perhaps, from showing me 
her affection for she had noticed that whatever es- 
pecially occupied my mind or aroused my interest 
caused a weakening, a notable decrease in her power 
among us. She always showed far more regard to 
the others, particularly to Mr. F., the only one 
who could speak her native language." 



162 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

It is certain that the entity manifesting herself 
in the very substance of the medium, would avoid 
releasing this matter which did not belong to her. 
At the slightest excitement, the subconscious action 
of the medium tended to recovery of her own cells ; 
it was necessary, therefore, to leave the medium in 
her state of coma and to spare her all emotion. In 
some cases the assistants were able to furnish part 
of the elements, and thus relieve the medium. 

So extraordinary a phenomenon is always difficult 
to explain. We are forced to take account of the 
psychological analysis which Madame d'Esperance 
has given of herself. This analysis sets forth the 
consecutive sensations of the seizure of her bodily 
substance, and on the psychological side, the tele- 
pathic sensations which prove her participation in 
the life of the phantom. But we must not conclude 
that entities of the other worlds are not also present. 
Indeed, we notice that even though the sensation 
belongs to the medium, her passivity is required. 
The medium does not act within the phantom, and 
the latter has a tendency to dissolve as the will of 
the medium seeks to regain her organism. This 
means that the phantom can do nothing except by 
means of the organs it borrows and without which 
it would have no existence upon the material plane; 
but this does not mean that it is not master of its 
acts upon the mental plane. 

In fact, the medium, physiologically impoverished, 
finds herself in a strange situation. She shares the 
sensations of the phantom, since it is her own sub- 
stance which constitutes the materiality of the ap- 
parition. WTiatever touches the phantom affects 
her, but it is wrong to see in this a proof of the 



COMPLETE MATERIALIZATIONS 163 

identity of the medium and her phantom. The iden- 
tity is wholly material, while the mentality of the 
phantom remains independent. 

This mutual sharing of matter by two possessors 
renders absolutely criminal the attacks made by new 
comers before they have gained any rational idea 
of the phenomenon. The race of unbelievers knows 
no golden mean between an outright deception and 
an apparition embodying their mystical idea of a 
heavenly creature, with them a pre-conceived notion. 
Like Miss Florence Cook, our medium was the victim 
of one of these brutal seizures. 

Madame d'Esperance thus describes the attack: 

"I do not know how the seance began. I had 
seen Yolande take her pitcher upon her shoulder 
and leave the cabinet. I learned later what took 
place. What I felt was the anguishing, horrible 
sensation of being crushed or smothered, the sensa- 
tion I imagine, of a rubber doll being violently em- 
braced by its small owner. Then terror overwhelmed 
me and I was in an agony of distress; I seemed to 
lose the use of my senses and imagined myself falling 
into a fearful abyss, knowing, seeing and hearing 
nothing save the echo of a piercing cry, which seemed 
to come from afar. As I felt myself falling I tried 
to grasp a support and found none; I fainted and 
came to, trembling with horror as from a death 
blow. 

"My senses seemed scattered to all the winds and 
it was only little by little, that I could come to my- 
self enough to understand what had happened. 
Yolande had been seized, having been mistaken for 
me!" 1 

i Au pays de I'ombre, p. 244. 



164 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

Unfortunately there are still fools who declare 
that chicanery has been unmasked by similar actions. 
But it was just such an act which consequently 
placed Miss Florence Cook under the scientific con- 
trol of Messrs. Crookes and Varley, and such acts 
have left nothing in the arms of those who committed 
them. Did they seize some wretched mannikin? No 
— but the medium came out physically broken, with 
a serious hemorrhage of the lungs. 

This outrage was later followed by fortunate con- 
sequences. The medium declared with sincerity, "If 
I have some part in the creation of these forms, I 
wish to know it." And taking up her experiments 
once more, with her usual spirit of investigation, 
decided not to enter the cabinet again, but to remain 
among the audience. 

In this second series of experiments, we should 
note two instructive seances. We might wonder if 
it is not a question of a mere redoubling of the 
medium, without intervention by an occult entity. 
Mme. d'Esperance answers the question. It was in 
Christiania during the course of a seance in which 
different apparitions had already appeared, Mme. 
d'Esperance thus completes her story: 

"Now they saw another figure advance, smaller, 
slenderer, and holding out her arms. Someone rose 
from the circle, hurried toward her and fell into 
her arms. I heard inarticulate cries, 'Anna, Oh, 
Anna! My child, my love.' 

"Another person also approached and took the 
spirit in her arms; tears, sobs and thanksgivings 
were mingled. I felt my body drawn to the right 
and left and everything grew dark before my eyes. 



COMPLETE MATERIALIZATIONS 165 

I felt the arms of someone about me, and yet I was 
alone, seated upon my chair. I felt the heart of 
someone beat against my breast. I felt all this was 
happening to me, and yet there was no person near 
me except the two children. No one remembered my 
presence; all thoughts and all eyes seemed concen- 
trated upon the white and delicate figure surrounded 
by the arms of the two women in mourning. 

"It was indeed my own heart that I felt beating 
so distinctly — but those arms around me? I had 
never experienced a contact as real and began to 
wonder who I was. Was I the white silhouette or 
the person seated in the chair? Were those my 
hands round the neck of the elderly lady, or were 
they mine which lay upon my knees? I mean upon 
the knees of the person seated upon the chair, in case 
that was not myself. 

"Certainly they were my lips that received the 
kisses; it was my face that I felt wet with the tears 
shed so abundantly by the two ladies — yet how could 
that be? It was a terrible feeling thus to lose con- 
sciousness of one's identity. I strove to raise one of 
those useless hands and to touch someone, in order 
to know if I really existed, or was merely the victim 
of a dream; if Anna were myself or if I had con- 
fused my personality with hers. 

I felt the trembling arms of the old lady, I felt 
the kisses, tears and caresses of her sister; I heard 
their blessings, and, seized with a veritable agony of 
doubt, I wondered how long it would last. How 
long shall we be two? And how will it end? Will 
I be Anna or will Anna be me? 

"Suddenly I felt two little hands slip into mine, 
which lay inert. They put me once more into pos- 



166 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

session of myself. With a feeling of great joy I 
felt that I was indeed myself. Little Jonte, weary 
of being eclipsed by the three materialized forms, 
suddenly felt lonely and took my hands to comfort 
himself with my company. 

"How profoundly happy I was made by the simple 
touch of a child's hand! My doubts as to my in- 
dividuality and location had vanished and as these 
thoughts came to me, the white silhouette of Anna 
disappeared into the cabinet and the two ladies re- 
turned to their places, overcome, weeping, but 
transported with joy." 

It requires an effort of the imagination to put 
ourselves in the medium's situation, and to realize 
its dramatic character. After years of study, Mme. 
d'Esperance still wondered if she had been a victim 
of auto-suggestion. Sure of her sincerity, she was 
not sure of the reality of the apparitions. Recalling 
the resemblance of Yolande to herself, the brutal 
seizure from which she had formerly suffered raised 
a new problem. She no longer felt her body, was 
unconscious of her location, on the contrary she felt 
intensely whatever she saw come into contact with 
the phantom. The spectators, solely occupied with 
the apparition, seemed to ignore her presence, and 
her mind became deranged; finally, a child's caress 
released her from this anguish. Therefore, she was 
not absent, she was indeed there upon her chair, 
visible to all. She was not the other in whom all 
her sensations seemed confused. 

This phrase, "Am I Anna or is Anna myself?" 
is in its simplicity, absolutely expressive. It be- 
speaks the trouble of a sincere medium and explains 



COMPLETE MATERIALIZATIONS 167 

the hasty judgments of unfair experimenters. In 
short the confusion of sensations might cause the 
medium to lose the distinction between the organ and 
its double. When she wishes to make an effort, as 
was the case with Eusapia, upon whom were imposed 
experiments of a physical nature, she cannot always 
discern whether it be the invisible fluidic member or 
the hand of flesh that obeys the suggestion, and at 
the least suspicious movement of the latter, most 
unjust judgments are formed. 

In the case of Madame d'Esperance, it was her 
entire body which felt this uncertainty of itself, but 
her reasoning powers remained intact. This has been 
excellently said by M. Gabriel Delanne. 

"Thus it seems incontestable that insofar as matter 
is concerned, medium and phantom are strictly in- 
terdependent and intimately united; but from the 
psychological point of view, the separation is com- 
plete. They are two distinct beings existent at the 
same moment, but as different one from the other 
as if the same substance did not serve them at the 
same moment. A materialized spirit and a medium 
are somewhat like the Siamese twins, who had a part 
of the body in common, but whose heads thought 
separately, each on its own side." * 

Thus the phenomenon borrows the substance of 
the medium, dissociating the organs without dissolv- 
ing the thinking individuality. 

It is almost contrary with the outgoing of a soul; 
the soul remains and the body partly withdraws, at 
the suggestion of a foreign influence. 

We might quote still other famous materializa- 
tions. In 1886 in London, Aksakof succeeded in 

i G. Delanne, Les Apparitions MaUrialisies. VoL II, p. 687. 



168 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

taking photographs in which the medium and the 
apparition were visible simultaneously. 1 The medium 
was Eglinton, the same who gave the magnificent 
apparition witnessed by the painter James Tissot, 
who preserved its memory for us in his splendid 
engraving. 

Dr. Gibier, founder of the Pasteur Institute in 
New York, gave an account of his experiences 
with Mrs. Salmon, in a memoir addressed to the 
Psychological Congress in Paris on the materializa- 
tion of phantoms. Charles Richet observed in Al- 
giers in 1905 at the home of General Noel a ma- 
terialized form, and in a minutely detailed report, 
demonstrated that this personage was neither a re- 
flected image, a mirror, a doll nor a mannikin. This, 
however, did not prevent certain petty individuals, 
seeking notoriety, from launching an infamous at- 
tack by setting forth hypotheses incompatible with 
the facts and mutually sustaining one another by 
each bringing forward a different version. Never- 
theless, Richet's report still exists unimpaired and 
among other conclusive statements he wrote: 

"In any case this remains, which is of considerable 
value — that a living body took form before my eyes 
in front of the curtain, rising from the floor and 
returning into the floor. 

"I was so fully persuaded that this living body 
could not proceed from the curtain, that I suspected 
at first a trap, which was absurd. 

"The day following this experiment, I examined 
minutely the tile and the coach house directly under 
this part of the pavilion. The very high ceiling 

i See G. Delanne, Les Apparitions MaUrialisies. Vol. II, 
pp. 294-399. 



COMPLETE MATERIALIZATIONS 169 

of this stable was plastered with lime, hung with 
spider webs and inhabited by spiders which had not 
been disturbed for a long time, when by means of 
a ladder, I explored the ceiling." * 

Those who know this scholarly physiologist, are 
aware that he makes no affirmation lightly. 

i Annates des Sciences Psychiques. Nov., 1905, p. 658. 



CHAPTER IX 
MATERIALIZATIONS OF NATURE 

In every living germ there is a creative 
idea which develops and manifests itself by 
organization. 

Claude Bernard. 

About 1895 Aksakoff arrived at this conclusion: 

"We see a prodigious fact rise before us, one 
that no one has dared examine, a fact which is 
destined to become one of the most brilliant acquisi- 
tions of anthropological science and which we shall 
owe to Spiritism — namely: that the physical and 
psychic action of man is not confined to the 
periphery of his body." 1 

In truth, as we have stated, the possibility of 
effecting an action on matter without contact is 
destined to modify all our ideas upon the existence 
of the nervous current which physiologists agree 
in considering as a product of the organism of man 
and animals. 

Though the power of moving a heavy body with- 
out contact necessitates the intervention of a mate- 
rial agent, no one any longer attributes this effect 
to a nervous current which could make itself felt 
outside of the ways of conduction. At once, the 
existence of a psychic element becomes a necessary 
lAnimisme et Spiritisme, by Alexander Aksakoff, 1896, p. 523. 
170 j 



MATERIALIZATIONS OF NATURE 171 

hypothesis, and another fact — the mental sugges- 
tion passing from one brain to another — proves the 
presence of an unknown element, material or im- 
material, we cannot tell which. 

Here we have firmly established, on a secure basis, 
the problem of existence of an active agent inde- 
pendent of our organs. Let us call this agent 
psychic force; in it we have the cause, the true 
motive power, of our organs. It is without contact, 
is it not, that Nature proceeds to operate on 
matter? Does not the force of gravitation suffice 
to prove action from a distance? And attraction, 
does it not act by means of the nervous current? 
A planet does not come out of nothingness, it comes 
from the invisible and is constituted as an opaque 
body. That is to say, it materializes itself. On 
the planet which was in the beginning but a lifeless 
desert all organized beings appeared. These were 
nothing but materializations. The germination of 
plants is a materialization which takes place under 
our eyes, and which is not caused by chemical action. 
Two similar grains, of different kinds, may be 
planted in a soil, chemically identical and make 
themselves into different chemical bodies. That is to 
say, their psychic faculty permits them to make a 
selection among the elements which are offered them, 
exactly as selection takes place within our stomachs 
and our intestines. That it is incontestably a 
psychic action will become still more apparent with 
further examination. The ivy, arrived at the top 
of the wall which sustains it, changes its form of 
materialization. From the simple climber that it 
was, it will develop branches and even modify the 
form of its leaves, which will no longer be star- 



TO PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

shaped. A climbing plant directs itself to the right 
or to the left, according as I incline the point of 
support, towards which it tends. Still further, 
the plant determines its own organs and the direc- 
tion of the so-called nervous current. If, in the 
beginning of summer, I cut a twig of privet or of 
elder just opening into leaf, and if I plant it up- 
side down in the ground, it will put forth roots, and 
strong ones, thus modifying the chemical composi- 
tion of its bud, and the sap, changing its course, 
will go up instead of down. Let us pass to the 
living animal. We can, by means of skillful graft- 
ing, reverse a rat's tail; and surely here the so- 
called nervous current would be able in this new 
position, to divert its direction. These are some 
of the reflections that present themselves in simple 
support of the fact that an object may be moved 
without contact. 

We may well state that the agent which shakes 
the table comes from an organic action; but it is 
the action of a psychic organ, to which we can 
attribute all active power, outside of the nervous 
current. Experience proves to us that this psychic 
element, exteriorized by a group of persons placed 
around a table, is sensitive and active. More than 
that, it is, like the human soul, accessible to the 
most unconscious and most distant suggestions. 
Something like a field of magnetic force is created 
by the fluidic exteriorization of all the persons 
present. This field of force is sensitive to sugges- 
tions, or creates an echo of all the present or ex- 
traneous thoughts, and is translated by movement. 
There is here a veritable animistic field, an element 
which is the vehicle of telepathic action. Here we 



MATERIALIZATIONS OF NATURE 173 

are in the presence of a colossal fact, of which many 
have failed to grasp the importance. It is that 
thought is capable of stirring matter without the 
help of the nervous current ! But, in order not to 
offend the physiologists, I will agree with them 
that the nervous current incontestably exists; only, 
I should define it thus : 

All life in nature is sustained and nourished by 
a telepathic current extending everywhere and of 
an unknown essence. The portion of the current 
which traverses an organic unity is called nervous 
current. 

We shall develop this conception, and we hope to 
show how the presence in the human body of a 
fluidic invisible element, endowed with the double 
power of acting and of feeling, extending its action 
beyond the organs which enclose it, gives us the 
key to all organic movements. It even permits us 
to understand, in a certain measure, the first ap- 
pearance of beings upon earth, which is only a 
phenomenon of slow materialization under that form 
of evolution which science calls phylogenic. And we 
shall also explain the evolution of the individual — 
that is to say, ontogenesis. 

Organic Movements 

Let us try to understand first how our individual 
self conducts itself within us, considered as the force 
capable of moving our organs. How shall we ex- 
plain the relation of soul and body. 

This may be explained very simply by supposing 
that our organs themselves are provided with a 
certain independent animic power, of which the re- 



174 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

serve is fed by the same substantial currents which 
traverse our organism. 

We know that our body is merely the sum of small 
organisms which are called cells. 

The cells are agglomerated, specialized, and or- 
ganized according to the functions they are called 
upon to fulfill. One association will form, for ex- 
ample, the eyelid, the iris, and cornea, which are 
organs. A grouping of different organs constitutes 
a mechanism, such as the visual or respiratory 
mechanism. The construction of the organic edi- 
fice resembles very much the work of the compositor 
in a printing shop. First, he looks for the characters, 
which represent the cells ; and then he assembles 
them to form the words. Each phrase is an organ, 
many organs concur in the development of a com- 
plex argument, the whole forming the thesis, or body 
of the book, which represents physiological unity. 
Finally, the human body reduces itself, in the last 
analysis, to the cell which constitutes at the same 
time the tiniest living body and the feeblest degree 
of the thinking and acting substance of the mar- 
row and of the brain. It is a being, already evolved, 
which has not been able to realize its materialization 
except in a surrounding already prepared to re- 
ceive it. It is clothed in a medullary tube, whose 
formation preceded that of the brain. Even to-day 
a human being, when it is forming in the womb of 
its mother, begins by constructing itself on a medul- 
lary axis, without a skull, without a brain. 

The brain, temple of mystery, is the final un- 
folding of the materialization of the nervous system 
and the apparent seat of the activities perceived 
by our consciousness and interpreted by it. Be- 



MATERIALIZATIONS OF NATURE 175 

neath the brain is the spinal cord, which, as every- 
one knows, is protected by the vertebral column. 
Throughout its length, nerves go out, emanating 
everywhere, extending the voluntary action which 
comes from the brain to all the periphery (and 
beyond, let us not forget). On the other hand, the 
cutaneous surface is the ending of a multitude of 
nervous fibers which are the recipients of feeling. 
This constitutes the double function of the motory 
and sensory nerves, which in the vertebrae are repre- 
sented by a double column, descending and ascend- 
ing, or again centrifugal and centripetal, according 
to the direction of the telepathic current which 
transmits the activities or sensations. The direc- 
tion of a current does not exist by virtue of a 
specific property inherent to matter, but by a sug- 
gestion which has been long imposed and which may 
be modified. Aside from these clusters of the 
vertebral column, we have nerves which correspond 
to the senses of sight, hearing, smell, etc. These 
are grafted more directly on the brain cavity and 
communicate with the organic mechanism of far 
higher functions. They are our informers. The 
auditive and the visual mechanisms have already ac- 
quired an aptitude to retain sensations of sound and 
light. These our superior consciousness interprets 
in its turn, according to the internal representation 
which we have created for ourselves during the course 
of centuries. 

Thus cells, organs, and mechanisms represent to 
a certain degree an incorporation of the thinking 
and acting substance. At every step of the organic 
scale the soul is manifest in a matter which renews 
itself endlessly and whose integral renewals no more 



176 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

harm the phenomenon of consciousness than they 
harm the superior physiological unity. 

Matter vanishes, but the sphere of animic force 
remains. In whatever part of the living body an 
anatomist may place his scalpel, he arouses a con- 
sciousness, touches a sensibility. What he calls re- 
actions are willed determinations ; and, on our side, 
we term subconscious this independent action of an 
organ acting spontaneously. 

In short, the nervous system appears as a vast 
network of telepathic transmissions, through which 
we send messages reaching all points of our territory. 
They bring back to us all the information of interest 
on condition that we lend our attention. 

Such is the human being. At birth, he has an 
already organized net-work of nerves ; and if the 
child really came into the world for the first time, 
it would be as miraculous as the apparition of a 
book issuing from the printer's shop without the 
intervention of any intelligence. Let us now examine 
the process of materialization observed under its 
most rudimentary form, the only form available for 
scientific study. 

Most scientific men who have followed the seances 
of Eusapia Paladino, and have verified regretfully 
the reality of the plastic formations, have consoled 
themselves by affirming that nothing issued from 
her except by her own desire. If that were really 
attained, the will would then be capable of moving 
organic molecules and of drawing them outside the 
organism in order to model the meditated forms. 
It would thus create images or organs whose psychic 
exteriorization would furnish the material. 

We ask no more, for with the help of survival, 



MATERIALIZATIONS OF NATURE 177 

the survivor may in his turn manifest himself under 
the forms and appearances which he judges best. 
This would lead us to admit, at least, a material 
element in thought, and a creative power of the 
mind. Through this we should arrive at a new con- 
ception of all the movements of life. 

It is very certain that there is no death in or- 
ganic matter. There is nothing, however inert, 
which is not to a certain degree sensitive and con- 
scious. There are no organic molecules that do not 
depend, in some more or less distant manner, upon 
will. 

We come back to the old adage, Mens agitat 
molem. And, since Nature is simple in her laws, 
we must search for the origin of the creation of 
beings, nebulas and simple atoms in an immaterial 
force, in a thinking power of the same nature as 
that which we feel within ourselves. 

The materializations which produce forms — at 
first nebulous, then hands, and then the entire phan- 
toms — are related to the processes of evolution 
realized by nature. 

If there is something true in the theories previously 
advanced — in the polyzoism of Durand de Gros, 
animism, transmission of images, and movements at 
a distance, etc. — there is no longer room for sur- 
prise that thought may exercise a plastic action on 
exteriorized animic substance. Our organic rela- 
tions are telepathic phenomena ; the so-called nervous 
currents are psychic currents. As to seances of 
materialization, I am certain that ultimate experi- 
ments will convince us that the thought of the 
audience is like a motive center of excitation, as 



178 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

capable of provoking systematic inhibition as of 

contributing to the creation of plastic forms. 

Materialization may be understood, then, as a 

sphere of momentarily exteriorized power, reinforced 

by organic molecules, upon which the will acts. 
* * * * 

Telepathy, acting in the organic sphere, adapts 
itself admirably to our physiological knowledge if 
we replace the purely conventional idea of the action 
of nervous currents for that of volition. 

This would be far more comprehensible, for I 
acknowledge that to speak of excitation of a nerve 
does not make its movement clear to me. You may 
call a certain center "excito-motor," but that does 
not confer upon it any activity. On the contrary, 
a volition transmitted by telepathy is an action that 
may be put in the same category as the facts pre- 
viously observed. The organs and the brain itself 
being necessarily strangers to telepathic perception, 
the phenomena presuppose the intermediary of 
psychic agents, not as yet known to physics. The 
nervous current is only an hypothesis, but psychical 
transmission is an empirical truth which it is no 
longer possible to disregard. We may even experi- 
ment with it anatomically. We may isolate from 
the brain the so-called nervous currents, and thereby 
note the subordinate currents which continue to act 
in a more restricted region. Thus, for example, 
we know that the sensitive and motive fibers emerge 
from the spinal column. We might believe that these 
fibers are simple conductors which live with the life 
of the brain, to which they are united. But this is 
not true. It astonishes many physiologists, but 
these groups of nerves have their own life. From 



MATERIALIZATIONS OF NATURE 179 

an ancient discovery, which has been verified by 
Claude Bernard, we find that if these groups of 
sensitive nerves are cut below the ganglion, which 
is near the point of contact, the nerve dies, or at 
least it seems to die, because it no longer gives signs 
of sensitivenes. But if the severance is made higher 
up, and the ganglion remains attached to the nerve, 
it lives. This is equivalent to saying that the 
ganglion occupies the place of the head and is the 
conscious center of the excitation, which is mani- 
fested by sensibility and movement. In other words, 
a group of nerves related to the brain, through the 
spinal column, obeys the suggestions of the brain. 
It no longer obeys when the communication has been 
cut. Deprived of its normal relation, it is thrown 
back on its independence, the excitation which it 
should transmit to the brain stops with itself. But 
if we excite, beyond it, the end of the nerve still ad- 
hering to the marrow, the brain receives the sensa- 
tion, on condition that the nerve in question is in 
the centripetal current, is a sensitive nerve. And 
the sensation, in this case, is analogous to the 
sensation which, in the same manner, would be sent 
by peripheric contact. But if it is a motive nerve, 
of centrifugal functions, the brain will receive no 
impression. We may then act on the part detached 
from the trunk and immediately the whole nervous 
mass will respond as a sensitive animal. The con- 
sciousness of touch is in the nerve, which perceives 
by itself and which manifests itself by movement. 

This then, is the manifestation of the soul in the 
secondary centers. The absence of reaction, how- 
ever, is not a proof of insensibility. The will has a 
power of inhibition upon the nervous centers, without 



180 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

which it would be impossible to coordinate our move- 
ments. This power no longer exists from the 
moment that the nerve is deprived of its normal 
connection with the brain. Here I quote from the 
text of Mathias Duval: 1 

"An animal in its physiological state may experi- 
ence an intense excitation without making the 
slightest movement. After the cutting of the spine, 
the slightest touch to that part of the body which 
has been deprived of nerves by the posterior seg- 
ment of the spine, will suffice to produce energetic 
movement in the corresponding members." 

Let us recall, again, the intensity of the somnambu- 
listic dream, analogous to the intensity of these 
physical movements, of a member detached from its 
principal center. In both cases this must result from 
a similar cause, the absence of a restraining power. 
This power, which is called the faculty of inhibi- 
tion and which seeems inexplicable to the physiolo- 
gists, because it does not answer to any of the 
theories of vital chemistry, is explained very easily 
by the animic theory, which accepts the idea of a 
psychic force and a will. A cell may, indeed, re- 
ceive the suggestion to remain impassive under ex- 
citation. Mucius Scevola held his hand motionless 
over the brazier, an act made possible by that psychic 
force which dominates our organs the motive souls 
execute only those of our suggestions which they 
fully understand. From the moment a cell obeys 
the idea of movement, it may equally well obey the 
idea of resistance to the movement. It has been 
proved that the brain does not act dynamically upon 
the organs, but that each functional mechanism has 
within itself its own will, and that the psychic con- 
i Physiologie, Mathias Duval, p. 70. 



MATERIALIZATIONS OF NATURE 1811 

ductor acts in whatsoever is left of its organic 
domain, even after the removal of the brain. It is 
a fact which we cannot bring too strongly into 
evidence that, with man himself, the cerebral hemi- 
spheres have no other functions than those of will 
and of perception. The wish, transmitted tele- 
pathically to the motive organs, excites them; but 
these, in turn, act spontaneously, using their own 
dynamic force. In a word, physiological unity, a 
central consciousness merely sends a suggestion and 
the organs act spontaneously. 

"The faculties which survive," says Flourens, 
"after the ablation of the cerebral lobes are those 
on which depend the functions of nutrition (that is 
to say, digestion, circulation, respiration), of move- 
ment, locomotion, and even of sensation." 1 

Here we must notice that the sensation of a func- 
tional mechanism absolutely escapes our observation. 
Flourens maintains that this faculty survives — it 
would be more correct to say that it persists. In 
reality it exists, in a feeble degree, in the whole 
isolated part of the brain. Flourens presupposes, 
on the other hand, that the faculties of perception 
and of memory are lost; this should be understood 
as meaning the central perception and memory, for 
we must accord a special memory and volition to the 
inferior association, isolated from its center. 

When a decapitated frog acts, when its leg re- 
sponds by reactionary movements towards the ex- 
cited part, it is not the principal will which acts, 
but the ganglionary will. If, then, a movement 
may produce itself after the ablation of the cerebral 
lobes, it is true that perception does not exist for 

i Flourens, De la vie et de I 'intelligence, 1858, p. 66. 



182 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

the frog, though the act is felt somewhere, and 
willed, because the leg directs itself towards the 
excited place; but the cause of the movement is a 
divisional entity, a kind of inferior animalcule. It 
is a ganglionary memory, which recognizes an ac- 
quired sensation, to which this local soul responds 
automatically. If the chicken from which the cerebral 
mass has been taken is incapable of looking for its 
food, a grain put into its beak is nevertheless capable 
of provoking deglutition. There remains, then, a 
local memory and perception, even a will; only they 
are no longer the memory, perception, and will of 
the chicken, but those of a sort of monster, which 
has descended to the lowest stage of the vital scale, 
where the bulb which subsists has become a sort 
of organic head. If there is deglutition, there is a 
re-awakening of many acquired memories ; and since 
all three have perceived something, sensibility is not 
dead, but it appreciates at its true value the sensa- 
tion presented. 

Will cannot be said to be absent from such an 
action, since deglutition is a movement which has 
to be willed before it can be executed. Therefore it 
must not be said that sensation has been separated 
from volition, but simply that the ways of com- 
munication between the cerebral soul and the small 
organic souls have been cut. 

Each organic apparatus has its own life and its 
personal sensations. Thus the visual apparatus 
may be affected by objects and still know nothing 
about the intellectual images provoked in us by that 
vision, since these pass outside of it. The experi- 
ments of Flourens have demonstrated that if one 
takes out the superior brain of an animal, leaving 



MATERIALIZATIONS OF NATURE 183 

to it, however, all the organs of the senses, the eye 
would conserve its visual power, the iris would be 
mobile and could follow the displacements of the 
light, and the retina would conserve its sensitive- 
ness. However, we could not say that there is a 
vision of the image, because the visual representa- 
tion exists only in the inner consciousness of the 
animal. If, on the contrary, we take away the 
tubercule on which the ocular mechanism depends, 
without touching the cerebral lobe, the eye will no 
longer have movement or sensibility. It appears, 
then, that the organ, a stranger to the psychic 
representations, possesses active and sensitive facul- 
ties, as well as perceptions known only to itself; 
and it is no longer possible to sustain the identity 
of consciousness and functions, in view of these ex- 
periments which show an animal, without a brain, 
whose functions continue while consciousness no 
longer exists. Physiology is full of mysteries which 
it seems possible to clarify if we accord a portion 
of soul to each division of physiological unity. But 
we must not forget the invisible physiology, the 
unknown element, revealed in former experiments 
and constituting the sensitive element which inter- 
penetrates all the organic machine. 

Matter in mind are thus related by an inter- 
mediary state recently discovered. 

The current of induction goes from mind to matter 
in passing through this intermediary. This process, 
it is not difficult to admit, though our education 
has not prepared us for it. But now that certainty 
exists concerning an exterior action, effected with- 
out the aid of organs, it seems impossible to avoid 



184 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

the necessary deduction of the existence of an in- 
termediary organ. 

All our physiology gives us the proof of move- 
ment without contact. A cell is without contact 
with another cell, but nevertheless expansions and 
retractions are transmitted from one to the other 
and executed punctually under the sole direction 
of the will. Thus each cell is in telepathic relation 
with its neighbor; hence it is necessary that they 
should share alike sensibility and activity. In short, 
every organic division possesses a soul, or if we 
prefer, a part of a soul. This has been sufficiently 
established by the polyanimism of Durand de Gros, 
Every ganglion, every mechanism, every organ, 
seems to have a sensitive soul, endowed with will. 

The soul is not extinguished except in the lowest 
of the organic scale, at the dead point of inert 
matter, if it so be that inertia may exist in any part 
of nature. Our organs are but the material ex- 
pression of a form of life realized by our invisible 
soul. 

Dr. Durand de Gros felt the necessity of some- 
thing more than has been taught concerning simply 
physiological inductions, and was the first, I believe, 
to have the courage to put his ideas into circulation. 

He understood that there are no unconscious acts, 
and did not hesitate to conclude that the acts gen- 
erated by different points of the spinal column have 
souls as motive powers. He recognized, moreover, 
as an indispensable hypothesis, that there is a some- 
thing associated with our physical nature. He felt 
the necessity for introducing into our machine an 
occult agent of sensation; he affirmed that cerebral 



MATERIALIZATIONS OF NATURE 185 

matter is a stranger to telepathic perception and 
proclaimed it without reticence. 

Why has no one heeded these objurgations of a 
learned philosopher? It is because his system of 
polyanism makes too clear, things that it were better 
to leave in darkness ! Charcot saw this light and 
he withdrew. Is not scientific prudence an excellent 
excuse with which to hide the soul wherever it 
threatens to appear? At the present time all the 
embarrassing facts of animism are attributed to 
subconscious action of the brain, a strange formula, 
since it is contradictory in its terms. The poly- 
animistic system of Durand de Gros would admirably 
explain our subconsciousness, without doubt, but do 
we ever know whither we are tending? Scientific 
prudence prefers to avoid the danger. If we explain 
subconsciousness by the inferior centers of conscious- 
ness, the matter becomes too clear. We could not 
invoke unconscious cerebration to explain many of 
the verified cases of advice and warnings, and useful 
premonitions, which cannot be attributed to lower 
centers of consciousness. In order to do this we 
must presuppose that these inferior centers had 
been put into relation with an unknown magnetizer. 
What a horror! Science can not envisage such an 
eventuality. At present subconsciousness serves us 
as the tart for the filling, but on condition that we 
tolerate the vagueness and the implications which 
constitute the value of the word "subconsciousness." 

For subconsciousness is not the contrary of con- 
sciousness ; it is simply that which is in the con- 
sciousness of others. And you see the danger. With 
the system of Durand de Gros we could have an 
intestinal consciousness very useful for our diges- 



186 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

tion; a consciousness of the kidneys, the liver, or 
the lungs, unconscious functions so far as we are 
concerned, but conscious on the part of the agents 
who maintain them. So far, so good, but this leaves 
us without defense against the rising tide of phe- 
nomena which was so easily rejected in this domain 
without a proprietor. When a writing medium pro- 
duced a remarkable message, it was said, "It is sub- 
consciousness." But it was well understood that 
this consciousness dwelt in unknown regions. Can 
we now say, "It is the spleen of Miss X. that sends 
her news of her mother, imitating the signature of 
an unknown?" No, this would be difficult. The 
spleen is very necessary, but it is slightly lymphatic 
and conscientiously keeps guard over the white 
corpuscles of the blood; it never leaves these occu- 
pations to take up the pen. 

I know very well that we could easily find fault 
here. In the case at issue, we might say that all 
the faculties which concur in normal writing act 
unconsciously in mechanical writing. But this is 
absurd, because those faculties are purely motive 
and know only movement and do not know the mean- 
ing of the message. That is attributing much in- 
deed to motive consciousness, to believe it capable 
of coordinating ideas, imitating signatures, or 
speaking foreign languages. A motive ganglion 
which speaks Greek, or which improvises a whole 
system of philosophy, cannot have a very tranquil 
consciousness. 

This is where these experiments lead us into truth. 
They show us that the table, or the organs, are only 
simple agents of transmission, and that the motive 
agent is frequently found in the thought of a living 



MATERIALIZATIONS OF NATURE 187 

person. Here is a whole course of study, already 
outlined. A movement is conscious when it emanates 
from our own thought, and subconscious when we 
discover its origin in a foreign thought. 

I do not say an exterior thought, because our 
motive centers, for example, are wills foreign to 
ourselves, and yet within our organs. In daily 
speech one constantly makes the mistake of speaking 
of the body as it were oneself. It is important to 
remember that the body is only the implement of 
psychic force which constitutes the "ego" on the 
mental plane; the fact that consciousness is not in 
the instrument is already scientifically attested, but 
scientists do not wish to acknowledge it because it 
is difficult to take a step backward. It is certain 
that radio-activity, in changing our manner of see- 
ing, will drive materialism from its last entrench- 
ment; the atom is disappearing from the physical 
plane, it is nothing more than a creation like the 
celestial nebulas. 

Everything, then, comes from the invisible; there 
is in the invisible something almost immaterial, 
which condenses, and the being does not act differ- 
ently from the atom. There are psychic nebulas 
which precede the apparition of the first organic 
forms, and preside at their evolution. There is a 
nebula which precedes the birth of the child and 
presides over the development of the foetus in the 
womb of the mother. In experimenting with psychic 
phenomena, we see also that a psychic nebula pre- 
cedes the formation of that which Mr. Richet calls 
the ectoplasm. 

In brief, the feeble atom, which represents a con- 
densation of formidable energy, sums up within itself 



188 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

the process of planetary formations. Living organ- 
isms are a condensation of the creative idea which 
tends to manifest itself, and we know that each 
embryonic phase of the child represents the succes- 
sion of animal forces in the order in which they have 
appeared upon earth. Here I seem to see a ray 
of light ; the same biogenetic law explains the forma- 
tion of the body of the child, the genesis of animal 
species, the condensation of planets. The planet is 
a slow materialization — organized beings are slow 
materializations — the embryonic process is a rapid 
materialization. 

The spiritualistic materialization, still more rapid, 
is an imperfect creation, like physiological neo- 
plasms, which appear sometimes in living bodies, and 
which are like an accident in nature, a plethoric 
superfetation, subject to abortion. We shall say 
nothing of the slow materialization of the planetary 
nebula, which is an evident fact. Let us seek to 
explain the materialization of beings in accord with 
ontogenetic facts. 

We do not have to inquire as to what may be the 
psychic substance. It exists, that is enough. Be 
it material, pure spirit, or cosmic force, we leave 
this discussion to the philosophers and are content 
to submit it to their observations. The preceding 
observations oblige us to admit that this is the force 
which creates organic movement. One working hypo- 
thesis, then, shall be that psychic substance exists 
before the object which it puts in movement, that is 
to say, before the organic formation. Before any 
creation, the soul has been obliged to manifest itself 
slowly, in the simple concretion of a primitive cell. 
The animic substance acting upon all the planet, 



MATERIALIZATIONS OF NATURE 189 

has of necessity formed throughout the earth a 
multitude of simple concretions. 

The history of the development of beings shows 
us a higher and higher consciousness, succeeding in 
effecting its progress upon the ruins of a multitude 
of organisms so delicate that their existence was per- 
petually menaced. If the spring of life had been in 
matter, it would have been impossible for any 
progress to be transmissible from one cell to the 
others which were destined to succeed it. Progress 
is impossible if each individual ends in death. 

On the contrary, the soul, changing only its body, 
little by little, and by degrees, is never abruptly 
deprived of its organs. 1 Life is founded upon life; 
a multitude of simple lives must have profited by 
a first experiment to associate themselves in an 
organ. Elementary souls, already rich in acquired 
memories, and new aptitudes came to unite in better 
organs. 

All the forces which must concur in future realiza- 
tions worked then, in the invisible, in materialization 
of the organs most indispensable to the manifestations 
of life on the physical plane. From the molecular 
ancestor to the organic construction which has made 
possible the manifestation of the human soul, every- 
thing that has ever lived in the past survives in 
the present of human beings. 

In order that man might appear in the world it 
was necessary that he be preceded by an immense 
elaboration of organic life. The Darwinian theory 
of selection is accommodated easily to the animistic 
theory. Darwin explains the modifications of be- 
ings; but as to their origin, he says not a word. 
i Monadology, by Leibnitz, § 2. 



190 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

So we were saying that a will, of the same essence 
as that which we feel within ourselves, has already 
influenced the cellular organizations of atomic lives. 
From the first hour, telepathic action was affirmed 
in the simple association of several cells. Will, sensi- 
bility, memory have all progressed, because they 
have survived in associating themselves together. It 
is the persistence of animistic substance after death 
which permits individuals of the same species to re- 
constitute themselves into similar organs in following 
lives. Animals, declares Leibnitz, do not die abso- 
lutely. 

Arcella Vulgaris — the simple globule of the proto- 
plasm — is a being which already communicates by 
telepathy in the small sphere which obeys its sug- 
gestions. It is a materialization of the most ele- 
mentary order. Progress comes later, arising on the 
ascending scale of species, and it is thus that we may 
carry our origin back to the monocellular ancestor. 

But it would be an error to consider the philo- 
genetic ascension as a filiation of individuals, issuing 
one from the other, a kind of tree of Jesse ending 
in . man. The multitude of simple elements which 
must have been materialized from the beginning 
would lead us to think that creation arose every- 
where at the same time. At the base of evolution 
species were infinite in number; they are infinitely 
reduced at the summit. From the time that they 
had consciousness of being, certain forms, evolving 
side by side, elaborated analogous organs. These 
are always the digestive, respiratory, visual, and 
auditory systems that the entities have realized in 
grouping round themselves billions of unities, similar 
to themselves, which, however, specialized in new 



MATERIALIZATIONS OF NATURE 191 

functions. It follows that an association goes back 
to very confused sources, and that it has innumer- 
able ancestors rather than a single ancestor, whence 
the difficulty in botany, as in zoology, of making a 
rational classification. 

The primitive species must at different degrees 
have realized analogous types. Two ovula, similar 
in origin, have been able to give birth to the crab 
and the lobster, but we cannot say that the crab 
is an intermediary stage in the evolution of the 
lobster. Similar forms have been able to constitute 
themselves side by side, without issuing one from the 
other. 

The same appetites have created the same organs ; 
and the identical needs, in response to environment, 
realized the same mechanism. It was always, for 
example, an intestine, a bony structure, or a 
respiratory mechanism of which each one solved the 
problem according to its fashion, some by different 
means, many by identical means. Thus the same 
ocular mechanism is always found in man and the 
animals which have no relationship with him. 

The fundamental law of Haeckel is that the plant, 
the animal, and man have their origin in a simple 
cell, the same for all, which increased by absorption 
and propagated by dividing itself in 2, 4, 8, 16, 
etc. This method of increase is very far from the 
ordinary popular idea; it obliges us to conceive a 
plastic force acting on matter. It is true that a 
living cell was the first manifestation of terrestial 
life, but when Haeckel tells us that this is our an- 
cestor, he means simply that the ovulum of a human 
embryo is a cell similar to the primitive cell. If 
we go back over the ascendent chain of human 



192 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

genesis, we shall find at the end not an ancestral 
unity, but an elementary multiplicity of which man 
has become the summit and the directing unity. The 
creation formed in the womb of a woman is but a 
repetition of that which has been evolved through- 
out time, a preparation of animal forms, of which 
the human soul will come to take possession by a 
slow induction. When one asks why man, if he 
himself constructs his organs, has no consciousness 
of them, we may answer : "Because the animal souls 
do this work without him and that in their successive 
formations they have acted spontaneously." 

How may a cell proceed to its multiplication if 
it be not a center of plastic force, acting upon 
matter? We do not know of any cause of move- 
ment outside of this will which is in us; it is a con- 
scious force which calls forth life. The machine 
which creates its own movement and suspends its 
action at the right time differs essentially from 
mechanical processes which act of necessity. The 
machine has nothing of this spontaneity which re- 
tards movement up to the precise moment when it 
says, "I will." And let no one speak to us of a 
process of inhibition like a wick in a lamp. The 
amoeba, which is only a semi-liquid cell, resists the 
evaporation of solar action which would dry up an 
inert drop. Hence there is life there — that is to 
say, a will which resists — and we attest, once again, 
that we find in inferior organs the two constituent 
elements of animic essence, sensation and effort. 
Effort tends to association and organization; modi- 
fications are produced at random, by accidental 
meetings or under the influence of suitable surround- 
ings. The simple being wishes to grow and becomes 



MATERIALIZATIONS OF NATURE 193 

pericellular. The pericellular individuals wish to 
move, to nourish themselves, to know the exterior 
world, and they tend to the creation of organs. 
Species are different because each one represents the 
sum of the aggregates organized by it according 
to its appetites. Agreeable or disagreeable sensations 
are the factors which determine the choice. Thus 
life is an experimental test, and memory persisting, 
the being progresses. 

Often repeated suggestions become living ideas, in- 
corporated in the animic sphere as well as in matter. 
Each parcel of idea or feeling which passes under 
the fire of the will undergoes a process of digestion 
which assimilates or rejects it. Because aptitudes 
survive the destructions of the organic cells, the 
psychic sphere always progresses in quality and in 
quantity. 

There are in our organism millions of animalcules 
which are the result of distant existences. We reign 
in this domain, which is but the sum of small living 
souls which we have engendered in the course of 
the centuries. It is in this element that we normally 
communicate by telepathy. 

The spiritual being had no immediate empire over 
matter; it was necessary that the spirit of man 
should be grafted on the soul of the beasts. That 
is why animal evolution preceded the appearance of 
man on the earth. 

This conception of the evolution and constitution 
of the soul explains that each image recalls itself 
to the memory by a simple appeal, that of telepathy. 
All our knowledge is incorporated in an animic 
sphere obeying our suggestion. 

The history of the formation of beings such of 



194 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

it as we have been able to reconstruct from observa- 
tion, confirms us in the idea that creation is pre- 
sented as a progressive materialization, realized 
around an animic substance, which subsists outside 
the present life and begins again with the additional 
experience so acquired. Our organism contains the 
synthesis of all that has preceded us. Thus is ex- 
plained the fact that preformed man does not exist 
in the semen; the mothers' wombs contains only the 
elementary soul now taking up again the function 
to which it has grown accustomed throughout thou- 
sands of centuries. The road traveled by the primi- 
tive cell, a road which only the unfailing patience of 
the centuries has allowed it to travel, to-day is cov- 
ered, in this new environment, the womb of the mother, 
with a rapidity which would savor of the miraculous 
if it were a question of a new being. But the identical 
passage takes place to-day in a short time because 
we are on a worn road, far away from the gropings 
of primitive evolution. The embryo finds, in an 
eminently favorable environment, all the elements 
for its new incorporation. A being repeats its 
journey without hesitation, and this is why remate- 
rialization is infinitely more rapid. 

This interpretation agrees with the observed facts 
of ontogenesis and with the facts of experimental 
psychology. It permits us to have recourse to a 
single process in order to explain both the appear- 
ance of life upon our globe and of the child in an 
evolved world, while it classes under the same bio- 
genetic law the two forms of evolution which seem 

so unlike. 

* * * * 

All birth is a rematerialization, and the doctrine 



MATERIALIZATIONS OF NATURE 195 

of successive lives gives us a satisfactory solution 
to all the problems. The organism of a child, when 
he comes into the world, is a mechanism so com- 
plicated that it could not be the product of a spon- 
taneous creation. As we have shown in the preced- 
ing pages, he is the crowning of innumerable efforts 
and of frequent gropings. It is an already organ- 
ized psychic force which presides at the refection of 
the organs; a multitude of tactile, motive, visual, 
and auditory cells, trained in their functions for 
centuries, are organized in the foetus before the 
presence of any intelligence is revealed. 

Even the first incarnation cannot be the moment 
of birth. The child, when he appears for the first 
time in his terrestial envelope, is visibly in possession 
of organs with which he has been familiar for a long 
time. It must be supposed that an evolution, parallel 
to that which was taking place in matter, was pre- 
paring the psychic organs for future incarnations. 
The human animal was already old when the living 
soul was breathed into him, the induction of psychic 
force into matter. 

The first truly human incarnation must have bor- 
rowed the materials for the new edifice from the 
astral plane, and constituted, perhaps, a new body 
from old organs. The visual mechanism and audi- 
tory organs realized by the animal species are not 
unworthy of humanity and do not differ from ours. 
For my part, I should like to possess the sight of 
a bird, the sense of smell of a dog, and the hearing 
of a cat. These steps of physiological progress were 
already realized, and the soul of these organs was 
already skilled in the use of its functions by the 
practice of millions of years, when the intelligent 



196 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

being gained control and grafted itself on these 
organic forms. 

It is thus that humanity must first have appeared, 
not in a state of innocence, but in a state of ignor- 
ance which could not place it much above the animal. 
With time, spiritual light pierced the darkness ; 
moral ideas entered at the same time that laws, 
families, and tribes began to be instituted, and cities 
organized: and all this combined to form countries. 

Now, men are born in unequal conditions of evolu- 
tion and not one, perhaps, comes to this world for 
the first time. It is necessary that man be born 
again and reincarnate himself until his moral evolu- 
tion be attained. 

Consider the child who is newly born. The animal 
in him is sufficiently developed, so that he has nothing 
more to learn of material life. He can see, can hear, 
he knows how to suckle the breast of his mother — 
all functions belonging to the animal kingdom, from 
which he came, and, by consequence, already known 
to him. But he has painfully to acquire language, 
writing, and all the intellectual functions which are 
novelties to him. On this side, however, aptitudes 
are unequal and the differences are enormous, which, 
from a moral and intellectual point of view, separate 
the individuals of our species. Between the mollusk 
and the vertebra the physiological difference is great, 
but it is scarcely as great as the disproportion which 
may appear between two human beings. If we could 
see on the mental plane, we should be surprised at 
the great differences existing in hearts and intelli- 
gences which we are wont to class by families and 
species: the intellectual and moral scale would then 
appear in all its varieties. There is only one evolu- 



MATERIALIZATIONS OF NATURE 197 

tionary action which may give a reason for such dis- 
parity. As there has existed an uninterrupted chain 
in organic progress still visible in the animal king- 
dom, there must exist mentalities of different value 
in the mental kingdom to which man has attained. 
The progress, on this plane, can be made only by 
means of reincarnations. We see that the multitude 
of little children who are born, are only, from the 
physical point of view, little animals equally en- 
dowed; how then shall we explain that their intel- 
lectual endowment is so different. Education is 
powerless to change it; we see gentle and intelligent 
children, by the side of little rascals whose faces 
already bear the stamp of vice and bestiality. These 
latter show the retarded development of inferior 
mentality, while the intelligent child has already a 
certain experience of moral life, has already lived. 
This is the only explanation which satisfies reason 
and sentiment at the same time. 

We have seen that birth reunites interrupted rela- 
tions, that the foetus recapitulates the course of 
preceding evolutions. It is not the child who sug- 
gests its embryonic form, it is the embryonic enti- 
ties, who by virtue of psychic affinities, painfully 
created, reconstruct — that is, re-incarnate — them- 
selves round the first ovulum. It is thus that later 
on the child comes to be incarnated, in the recon- 
structed physiological unity. There is no precon- 
ceived plan; there is an order and a succession of 
forms previously learned and necessarily repeated. 
The visual soul cannot constitute itself otherwise 
than it has done in the animal species, and the same 
may be said of each organ. 

To believe, on one hand, that our faculties repre- 



198 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

sent the sum of the chemical activities peculiar to 
our substance, and, on the other, that these faculties 
will be manifested in the child who is born for the 
first time, would be the height of absurdity. To 
create an eye without having seen, to construct an 
ear without having heard! It would be easier to 
conceive a child, still within the body of its mother 
capable of speaking its national tongue. The mir- 
acle would be no greater. When a child comes into 
the world, we are profoundly ignorant of the mystery 
which prepares his way; but we may presuppose a 
series of inductions: first, induction of the mental 
body, this latter inducting the ethereal body, which 
in turn, inducts matter. 

Differences in conditions and inequalities of birth 
are thus justified. We need no longer attribute to 
God the spontaneous creation of innocent souls sub- 
jected to such unequal tests. But it is, above all, 
unreasonable and impious to suppose that this divine 
creation subordinates the will of God to the capri- 
cious union of human beings. A philosopher, Jean 
Reynaud, annihilates this theological dream in the 
following terms. 1 

"Unheard of things, baseness of souls, and if I 
dare say it, even while rejecting it, baseness of the 
Creator ! 

"It is as if a libertine, outraging in wanton pas- 
sion, by violation or adultery, all the laws of Heaven 
and earth, should infamously signal to Him whose 
eye is all-seeing ; and as if the All-Powerf ul, deciding 
to create, should give life to the unfortunate soul 
which must accompany the fruit of the debauch. 
Such are the occasions for which we oblige the 
Creator to come forth from His sublime repose! 
iJean Iteynaucl — Terre et ttiel, 1864, p. 198. 



MATERIALIZATIONS OF NATURE 199 

The most dishonest or disgraceful passion finds in 
Him, when it wishes, a faithful cooperator, hasten- 
ing to crown by an infinite complement that which 
had been so wretchedly prepared for Him. No, I 
will never grant you that the miracle of the appear- 
ance of a new soul in the universe could take place 
by a demand of this kind. If that were the truth 
I should prefer to consider the soul, as do the ma- 
terialists, to be a product of the generation of man, 
than to make of it a creation of God, for impiety 
revolts me even more than absurdity. Here is an 
obstacle that we can never overcome, for all 
theologians will run aground here. It is a rock." 

This is, indeed, the fact. Is it necessary to add 
that the attribution of such an act to the Divinity 
would be incompatible with justice, reason, and 
goodness? God having to create souls, He could 
only create them alike, give to all the same fate. 
Equality is found only in the original nothingness 
from which they sprang; it is in evolution that the 
differentiation of souls and intelligences begins. God 
would commit grave injustice in the repartition of 
souls if, of two souls having not as yet lived and 
therefore still innocent, He should project one, de- 
prived of intelligence, into a place of misery, over- 
whelming it with moral and physical blemishes, while 
placing the other in a fair environment, endowing 
it with all the gifts of heart and mind. 

The hypothesis that the soul is contained in the 
seed would explain no more clearly how similar 
bodies produce souls so different. This hypothesis 
is inspired by the point of view that conceives energy 
as contained in matter, which is folly. A much more 
probable theory is that nature has conformed in this, 
as in everything, to the method which she constantly 



200 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

follows, that of slow evolution. The soul develops 
itself under the influence of a creative will by which 
it is vivified. As solar magnetism attracts vegeta- 
tion, as the earth tosses up its fountain, so the in- 
dividual feels a will awaken within himself under 
the influence of the Divine Sun, and, like a flower 
on prepared soil, he germinates in the organic realm, 
as soon as the summit of evolution has been attained. 

There is thus a perfect order in a perfect justice. 
In the beginning, ignorance, with freedom for ex- 
perimentation. As soon as the will awakens, the 
being puts for his first effort, which he repeats in 
his successive lives. Free and without experience, 
he stumbles at each step. God is never an accomplice 
to his errors. God's light shines eternally upon 
consciousness. He who will not look toward this 
light, is liable to long gropings, and sooner or later, 
will recognize his error. 

In a word, we have come from nothing, but we 
all have the same course to follow, the same obstacles 
to overcome, the same kingdom to attain. 

Man dies and the child is reborn with the burden 
of his past, he is the author of his destiny; hence 
the great inequalities which appear from the moment 
of birth. But with each step that man takes toward 
truth, he feels himself more secure; there is always 
a little more light, a little more experience. He is 
the author of himself, the living negative of his own 
actions. The very quality of the astral body which 
surrounds him must bear the stamp of his failure, 
or manifest his greatness. If he generates hate, he 
(develops Hell within himself, and can never attain 
Heaven until he completely understands the splendid 
solidarity which should unite the human family. 



CHAPTER X 
SPONTANEOUS MANIFESTATIONS 

"There are more things in heaven and earth, 
Horatio, 
Than are dream'd of in our philosophy." 

Shakespeare. 

It is indispensable that a distinction be made be- 
tween the psychic faculties with which we may ex- 
periment, and the phenomena of the Beyond, which 
we may observe only when they are produced spon- 
taneously. We often confuse the two things. A 
certain scholar who has seen different subjects taken 
from a hospital automatically trace letters and 
strokes, flatters himself that he has found the key 
to mechanical handwriting. When he puts his sub- 
ject to sleep, transmits to him the suggestion to 
write in his dream, giving to this suggestion the 
form of a spiritual communication, and then claims 
to have demonstrated the great error of the spirit- 
ualists, he is, without realizing it, proving by this 
very experiment, that a person may write under the 
influence of another person, and that it is precisely 
in this that transmission from the Beyond in the 
form of the spirit message consists. 

It is very true that he has produced a fallacious 
communication, but he would have been able by the 
same procedure to have given an authentic message. 

This is why we have given the history of these 
201 



202 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

phenomena by citing them at first from the experi- 
mental side only, and by showing that all the 
phenomena wrongly characterized as supernatural 
may be produced, not at will, but under such condi- 
tions as enable us to determine their origin. It has 
been proved that they all may have their source in 
the thought of a living person. 

Theoretically, we have no difference to make be- 
tween the suggestion that a living person is capable 
of exercising and that which, by hypothesis, could 
be exercised by a disincarnated spirit. 

Thus the most rudimentary manifestation from 
the Beyond is produced by means of knocks. It 
should not be concluded that every medium whose 
presence makes it possible to obtain these remark- 
able phenomena, may send you a message. This is, 
however, the first objection that the skeptics make; 
they say: "I have seen Eusapia produce her knocks. 
There are no spirits in that. 5 ' 

In truth, experiment tends simply to put beyond 
a doubt the reality of a fact in which we have 
hitherto refused to believe — a fact which proves the 
existence of a method of physiology previously un- 
suspected. These knocks which seem to proceed 
from material agents having all the attributes of 
compactness, coming from invisible agents represent 
something which is absolutely beyond natural physics 
and inexplicable to us. We have perhaps not noted 
this sufficiently, and the disdain which certain ex- 
perimental scholars affect before a fact which is not 
linked to any known experience is not always sincere. 
The old magnetisers have observed these facts. 

The clairvoyant de Prevort, reports the Baron 
de Potet, without interference, knocked at the house 



SPONTANEOUS MANIFESTATIONS 203 

of whoever she wished and said that it was not with 
her soul, but with her spirit and by the medium of 
the air that she thus knocked. She asserted that 
outside of the soul and intelligence there was a 
nervous force, and that this remains the envelope 
of the soul when the soul leaves the body. 1 

The great physicist, William Crookes, who sub- 
jected all the manifestation of spirit matter to a 
most rigorous examination, speaks in these terms of 
raps : 

". . . With the full knowledge of the numerous 
theories which have been brought forward, especially 
in America, to explain these sounds, I have tested 
them in every imaginable manner, until it was ab- 
solutely impossible for me to escape the conviction 
that they were indeed real, and that they were not 
produced by fraud or by mechanical means." 

An important question claims our attention here. 
Are these movements and these noises governed by 
an intelligence? From the beginning of my research, 
I have insisted that the power which produced these 
phenomena was not merely a blind force but that an 
intelligence directed it, or at least was associated 
with it. Thus the noises of which I have just spoken, 
were repeated a determined number of times ; they 
became loud or soft at my demand; they resounded 
in different places. By a code of certain fixed signs 
which I had arranged in advance, the spirit answered 
my questions and the messages were given with more 
or less exactitude. 

i Baron de Potet, TraitS complet dtt ^Hagnfit^me, 5th Edi- 
tion, p. 240. 



204 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

The intelligence which governs these phenomena 
is sometimes greatly inferior to that of the medium 
and oftentimes in direct opposition to her desires. 

When a determination has been made to perform 
an act which does not appear rational, I have seen 
most urgent messages sent out to cause the medium 
to reconsider. 

This intelligence is sometimes of such a character 
that one is forced to believe that it does not emanate 
from any of those who are present. 1 Around these 
real mediums who lend themselves to an unlimited 
control, as did D. D. Home, Kate Fox or Eusapia 
Paladino, every searcher may, be it by observation 
or by control, succeed in establishing the truth con- 
cerning the fact which to him seemed improbable. 
But it is necessary to push the investigation much 
further in order to attest that, if these facts occur 
outside of all intervention or, rather, as says the 
clairvoyant of Prevort, if they are produced by the 
mind of the medium, there are many other cases 
for which this explanation is insufficient, cases in 
which the same effects are produced even in the 
absence of any clairvoyant. Such are those which 
take place spontaneously and which co-incide always 
with death. 

The repetition of these sounds which aim to at- 
tract attention and which cease as soon as that end 
is attained, permits us to believe that there is a 
relation of cause and effect between death and the 
audible manifestation. This is the more convincing 
since so many of these cases have occurred as the 
result of a pact or particular promise, and the 
manifestation has been received by those interested, 

* New Experiments on Psychic Force, by William Crookes. 



SPONTANEOUS MANIFESTATIONS 205 

even before they knew of the death of the mani- 
festant. 

Raps are an example of the simplest and most 
frequent manifestation. 

We shall not multiply the examples and witnesses, 
in which literature abounds. We shall merely cite a 
few as types, choosing preferably those which have 
the advantage of being related by well-known 
persons. 1 

Dear Master and Friend: 

It was in 1871 I was at the age when one gathers 
the little flowers of the field, as you gather the stars 
of the infinite; but during this time of passionate 
youth, I wrote an article which earned for me an 
imprisonment of several years. Everything comes 
to him, who has not learned to wait. I was in the 
prison of St. Peter at Marseilles. There I found 
a certain Gaston Cremieux condemned to death. I 
loved him very much, because we had had the same 
dreams and fallen upon the same hard reality. 

In our prison, at the hour of outdoor exercise, 
it often happened that we discussed the question of 
God and the immortal soul. One day, when several 
comrades had proclaimed themselves atheists and 
materialists with a vehemence out of the ordinary, 
I reminded them, on receiving a sign from Cremieux, 
that it was reprehensible on their part to speak thus 
in the presence of a prisoner condemned to death 
who believed in God and in the immortality of the 
soul. 

The condemned man said to me smilingly : "Thank 
you, my friend, when they shoot me, I will give you 
the proof of that immortality by appearing to you 
in your cell." 

i L'Inconnu, p. 76. 



206 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

On the morning of the 3rd of November, at dawn, 
I was suddenly aroused by a series of sharp little 
knocks, given on my table. I turned around, the 
sound ceased, and I went to sleep. A few minutes 
later the same noise recommenced. I jumped from 
my bed and planted myself half awake, before the 
table; the noise continued. This was repeated two 
or three times, always under the same conditions, in 
the same manner. 

On awakening each morning, it was my habit to 
go, with the connivance of a friendly keeper, to the 
cell of Gaston Cremieux. . . . Alas, there were seals 
on the door and I saw, by looking through the peep 
hole, that the prisoner was no longer there. I had 
hardly made this discovery when the keeper threw 
himself into my arms. "We shot him this morning 
at daybreak, but he died courageously." This is 
my story. I am sending it to you just as it came 
from my pen. I was in my normal state, I had no 
suspicion of the execution and I heard perfectly the 
series of warnings. Here is the naked truth. 

Clovis Hugues. 

Without doubt several isolated cases of this sort 
would not be of great value, but a multitude of 
analogous cases, and even more complicated ones, 
always coinciding with death, do not permit us to 
doubt that we here find ourselves in the presence of 
some of the greatest mysteries of the Beyond. 

The clairvoyant of Prevort said also, that the 
nervous spirit may produce other effects. "Souls," 
she said, "may not only speak, but are capable of 
producing sounds such as sighs, rustling of silk or 
rattling of paper, knocks on the wall and on the 
furniture, sounds of sand, of pebbles or of the shuf- 
fling of shoes on the ground; they are capable of 



SPONTANEOUS MANIFESTATIONS 207 

moving objects, be they ever so heavy, of opening 
and closing doors." 

"The nearer dissolution," said she, "the stronger 
and the louder are the sounds that they are capable 
of making, by the aid of air, or by their nervous 
spirit, and in truth, we find again all these forms 
of manifestations in the spontaneous phenomena." 

If a disincarnated spirit may arrange physical 
conditions which permit him to knock on material 
things, an intelligent being may be able to secure 
a better effect than knocking, for instance, by sound- 
ing a note on the piano. We have examples of this 
sort. Ulnconnu, page 108: 

About a year and a half ago, my father, a visit- 
ing cousin and my sister, were conversing in the 
dining-room. These three persons were in the room 
alone, when suddenly they heard the sound of the 
piano in the drawing-room. Much perplexed my 
sister took the lamp, went to the drawing-room, saw 
perfectly the keys rising and falling, and heard 
sounds. 1 

She returned and recounted what she had seen. 
The others at first laughed at her story, thinking 
that a mouse was at the bottom of the affair; but 
as my sister was possessed of excellent eyesight and 
was not superstitious in the least, they thought it 
very strange. Moreover a week later a letter com- 
ing from New York, announced to us, the death of 
an old uncle who lived in that city. But more ex- 
traordinary still, three days after the arrival of 
the letter, the piano again began to play and, as 
on the first occasion, an announcement of death came 
to us a week later, that of my aunt, this time. 

i M. Victorien Sardou has reported to me an analogous fact. 
Note by Flammarion. 



208 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

My uncle and aunt were a devoted couple, who 
had possessed a great attachment for each other, 
for their parents, and for the Juras, their place , of 
origin. 

The piano never again played by itself. The wit- 
nesses of this scene will testify to you of the matter 
whenever you may wish it. We live in the country 
near Neufchatel and I assure you that we are not 
neurasthenics. 

Edward Paris, 

Painter, 
Neufchatel, Switzerland. 

It should be noticed that all these spontaneous 
facts which occur unexpectedly to families, do not 
differ from the series of effects produced by mediums. 

A clairvoyant such as Eusapia may strike a note 
upon a piano, sound the chords of an instrument, 
turn a key at a distance, open and close the door 
of a wardrobe, under the best conditions of control, 
but these effects have only been obtained at a short 
distance, the dynamic power and the invisible organ 
residing in the physical body from which they were 
exteriorized. But the complete exteriorization on 
the part of a deceased man makes his field of action 
unlimited in space; it seems however to be limited 
in time to the few days which follow death. 

I acknowledge that I do not attach any value to 
the objection of certain scholars, who, having ex- 
amined the case of Eusapia, declared that there is 
no spirit therein. 

From the moment that a physical effect is pro- 
duced, outside of a physical organism, we are in the 
presence of a supernatural manifestation. Eusapia 
shows us a normal power of the Beyond, acting 



SPONTANEOUS MANIFESTATIONS 209 

under conditions but little known. It is she herself 
who acts ; but it is understood that a being from the 
other world produces the phenomenon when there 
is no longer a medium here to whom we may at- 
tribute it. 

This is exactly the case with manifestation after 
death. It is said that in these special cases the 
witnesses of the manifestations served as mediums; 
perhaps — in a certain measure, but it cannot be ex- 
plained why these chance mediums can act outside 
of the zone where other mediums work; why they 
are not limited to the field of action immediately 
surrounding the organism in space; and why the 
exception occurs only when the phenomena is unex- 
pected and coincides with death. 

The proof of identity is often strengthened by the 
fact that the raps recall certain marked character- 
istics of the deceased, whether because of a rhythm 
or because they are heard in a place to which he was 
accustomed during his life, or better still, because 
there has been an understanding in advance. 

Finally, the mediums have also the faculty of dis- 
placing objects, of opening or shutting doors, of 
drawing bolts. We find many of these performances 
in spontaneous manifestations, always in concord- 
ance with a death, or with the dying moments, the 
sick person at that time being conscious of mani- 
festing himself at a distance. 

The clairvoyancy of the dying is instructive. It 
reveals to us that they are the undoubted agents 
of the phenomenon whose effect greatly exceeds the 
action which a medium could produce only at a short 
distance. 



210 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

We could discuss this subject at greater length, 
for we have many examples, but our space is limited. 

Let us remember only that there is a distinction 
to be made concerning a phenomenon produced by 
an entity from the other world. The raps and move- 
ments of objects manifest themselves in a distinctive 
manner, according to the cases, and the distinction 
is the one we have made on the subject of telepathic 
transmissions. 

A simple animistic power coming from a medium 
will produce phenomena that may be repeated at 
will, or almost so; a foreign intervention may occur 
merely by accident. 

We do not generally understand the role of the 
double in manifestations, we do not take into ac- 
count its existence as if its reality were not proven; 
but, not only is the idea of the double a necessary 
hypothesis to the explanation of the majority of 
facts, but it also is manifested spontaneously. The 
spontaneous doubling of the human body is a 
phenomenon of great importance, for in it is found 
an unexpected confirmation of the possibility of ma- 
terialized apparitions. This phenomenon has been 
observed under numerous circumstances, and very 
wrongly classified among visual hallucinations, in as 
much as it has nothing in common with telepathy. 
In truth it is objective. Upon certain occasions 
photography has recorded it even when its visibility 
had not as yet attracted attention, though at other 
times it has been possible to observe the double of 
a person by his side. Take, for example, the case 
of Mrs. Stone : * 

i Telepathic Hallucinations, 4th ed., p. 278. 



SPONTANEOUS MANIFESTATIONS 211 

"I have been seen three times where I was not 
actually present, 1 and each time by different persons. 
The first time, it was my sister-in-law who saw me. 
She was at my bedside one night after the birth of 
my child. Looking at the bed where I was asleep, 
she saw me distinctly and saw also my double. She 
saw on one hand my natural body and on the other 
my spiritualized image. She closed her eyes several 
times, but on reopening them, continued to see the 
same apparition. In a short time the vision dis- 
appeared. She thought it was a premonition of 
death for me, and she did not speak of it to me 
until several months later." 

The presence of the double is so real that it is 
usually seen by all those present, as in the following 
case: 2 

Count D. and the sentries claimed to have seen 
one night the Empress of Russia, seated on her 
throne in full court costume, while she was asleep. 
The lady-in-waiting in attendance, also convinced 
of the vision, went to awaken her. The Empress 
herself came into the throne room and saw her own 
image. She ordered a sentinel to make a fire and 
the image then disappeared. The Empress died 
three months afterwards. 

But the most clearly defined case is that of Emily 
Sagee, which had a number of witnesses and which 
has become a classic. It concerns a teacher whose 
double was seen many times by all the pupils of a 

1 The narrator means that the image was seen in one spot 
while she was nearby in another. 

2 Quoted in Materialized Apparitions, by Gabriel Delanne, 
Vol. I, p. 392. 



212 PROOFS OP THE SPIRIT WORLD 

boarding school at Newelcke in Russia. We cite 
certain passages from Aksakof : * 

"Among the teachers there was a French woman, 
Mile. E. Sagee, born at Dijon. A few weeks after 
her appearance in the house strange rumors began 
to be circulated concerning her among the pupils. 
When one girl would say that she saw her in a 
certain part of the establishment, another would 
affirm that she had met her elsewhere at the same 
moment. But things soon became complicated and 
took on a character which excluded all possibility 
of imagination or mistake. One day, Emilie Sagee 
was giving a lesson to thirteen pupils, among whom 
was Mile, de Gudenstubbe, and to make her demon- 
stration clearer Mile. Sagee wrote the passage to 
be explained, upon the board. The pupils saw sud- 
denly and to their great terror, two mesdemoiselles 
one beside the other. They resembled each other 
exactly and were making the same gestures. Yet 
the real person had a piece of chalk in her hand and 
was writing, while her double had none but was 
imitating the motions that the real Mile. Sagee was 
making as she wrote. 

"From this time on, there was great excitement in 
the school, so much the more as all the young girls, 
without exception, had seen the second form and 
agreed perfectly in their description of the phenome- 
non. Shortly after this one of the pupils, Mile. 
Antoinette de Wrangel, obtained permission to go 
with several companions to a party in the neighbor- 
hood. She was completing her toilet, when Mile. 
Sagee with her usual kindness and habitual willing- 
ness to assist, came to help her button up the back 
of her dress. The young girl, turning, perceived 
in the mirror, two Sagees at work upon her. She 
i Animisme et Spiritisine, p. 498. 



SPONTANEOUS MANIFESTATIONS 213 

was so frightened at this sudden appearance that 
she fainted. 

"Some months passed and similar phenomena con- 
tinued to occur. At dinner, from time to time, the 
teacher's double was seen standing behind her chair 
imitating her movements while the real Mile. Sagee 
was eating, but the double used neither knife nor fork 
nor did she take any food into her hands. 

"Pupils present at the meals and servants in at- 
tendance have attested the truth of this phenomenon. 

"Nevertheless it did not always happen that the 
double imitated the movements of the real person. 
Sometimes when the latter would arise from her 
chair, the double would remain seated. 

"One day all the pupils, to the number of forty- 
two, were assembled in the same room busy with 
embroidery. It was a large room on the ground 
floor of the principal building. It had four glass 
doors, which opened on to a large garden belonging 
to the school. In the middle of this room was a 
long table around which the different classes gathered 
for their needlework. That day the young pupils 
were all seated about the table and could see very 
well what was going on in the garcien. As they 
worked they saw Mile. Sagee busy picking flowers 
not far from the house; it was one of her favorite 
pastimes. 

"At the upper end of the table another teacher was 
seated in a chair of green morocco. She was in 
charge of the class. At a given moment this lady 
left the room and the chair remained empty. But 
only for a short time, for the young girls saw in 
it, quite suddenly, the form of Mile. Sagee. Imme- 
diately they looked into the garden and saw her 
still there picking flowers, but her movements were 
slower now, like those of a person overcome by sleep 
or exhausted by fatigue. They looked again at the 



214 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

chair where the double was seated, silent and impas- 
sive, but with such an appearance of reality that if 
they had not seen Mile. Sagee and if that they had 
not known that it was impossible for her to have 
entered the room unperceived, they would have be- 
lieved it was she herself. But certain that they were 
not dealing with a real person, and more or less 
accustomed to these strange manifestations, two of 
the most venturesome pupils approached the chair 
and touching the apparition thought they felt a 
slight resistance, such as that occasioned by contact 
with any light material such as gauze or crepe. One 
even dared to pass in front of the chair and to go 
through part of the form, despite which, the appari- 
tion remained visible for a little while longer, then 
gradually faded away. The children observed at 
that instant that Mile. Sagee was again gathering 
flowers with her customary vivacity. The forty-two 
pupils described this phenomenon in exactly the same 
way." 

This proves that in the state of visible ex- 
teriorization the double has something corporeal; it 
is the beginning of materialization. 

If Mile. Sagee had given herself up to experimen- 
tation an occult entity might have manifested itself 
by taking possession of her double in order to 
produce certain phenomena at a distance, and might 
even have modeled the double into its own image and 
likeness. The best mediums are those who do not 
look for manifestations, but reveal themselves spon- 
taneously, and are surprised by intelligent opera- 
tions which they cannot attribute to themselves. 

The following story of Victorin Joncieres is taken 
from a book by Camille Flammarion : x 
iLes Forces Naturellea Inconnues, 1897. 



SPONTANEOUS MANIFESTATIONS 215 

"I was leaving the exhibition room of our Con- 
servatory after having given an examination to a 
certain class in piano, when I was accosted by a 
lady who asked my opinion in regard to her 
daughter, as to whether I thought that she should 
enter upon an artistic career. In the course of a 
rather long conversation in which I promised to go 
and listen to the young artist, I found that I was 
engaged to make a call that very evening upon one 
of their friends, a high official of the State, and 
to be present at a spiritualistic seance. That even- 
ing the master of the house received me with extreme 
cordiality and conducted me into a large room with 
bare walls. A few people were gathered there, 
among them his wife and a professor of Physics at 
the Lycee — in all about ten people. In the middle 
of the room was an enormous table of oak on which 
were placed paper, a pencil and a small harmonica, 
a bell and a lighted lamp. "The spirit has just 
announced to me," said he, "that he will come at 
10:00 p.m. We have therefore a good hour ahead 
of us. I shall profit by it and read you some of the 
minutes of our seances of the past year." 

"He put his watch on the table — it pointed to five 
minutes after nine o'clock — and covered it with a 
handkerchief. For one hour, he read the most un- 
believable tales. I was impatient however to see 
something. Suddenly a violent cracking came from 
the table. Mr. X took off the handkerchief which 
covered the watch — it was exactly ten o'clock. 
"Spirits, are you there?" he said. No one touched 
the table around which at his recommendation we 
formed a circle in which each held the other by the 
hand. A louder rap sounded. The young niece put 
her two small fingers on the edge of the table and 
asked us to imitate her. And this table of enormous 
Weight raised itself above our heads in such a manne? 



216 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

that we were obliged to stand in order to follow it 
in its ascent. It balanced itself a few minutes in 
space, then descended slowly to the floor where it 
settled without noise. Mr. X brought out next a 
large drawing on glass. He placed it upon the table 
and put beside it a glass of water, a box of colors 
and a paint brush. He then extinguished the lamp, 
relighting it three minutes later. The design, still 
wet, was colored in two tones, in yellow and blue, 
without a single stroke of the brush having passed 
beyond the traced lines." 

It is certainly unfortunate that mediums such as 
these, often revealed in upper class families, are ab- 
solutely lost for close study and thorough ob- 
servation. 

A society woman does not care to subject herself 
to systematic and disparaging attacks of profes- 
sionals, as that class has no other weapon save in- 
sult. It is also very unfortunate that many persons 
with weak powers of clairvoyance and of small 
education have the strongest mania for acting as 
mediums and exhibiting their powers. 

Especially in the practice of automatic handwrit- 
ing this passion rages. Yet the abuse of table 
seances on account of their extreme simplicity — be- 
cause everyone is able to obtain results — is also much 
to be regretted. It is because too great haste is 
made to enter into conversation with the simple 
animistic forces that so many sittings, badly di- 
rected, end only in confusion. 

Therefore once again must the distinction be 
made between that which comes from without and 
that which comes from within; between the true and 
the fraudulent message. 



SPONTANEOUS MANIFESTATIONS 217 

It is absolutely impossible to confound certain 
messages which come from a known source with the 
automatic handwriting of a medium who deceives 
himself. 

If it is a matter of raps, or of automatism of 
the motive centers of writing or speaking, there are 
always three explanations to offer for these phe- 
nomena: 1st, Automatism due to the organic dis- 
orders of a medium whose organs are mechanically 
relaxed; 2nd, Automatism caused by the thought 
of a distant agent; 3rd, Automatism behind which 
an intelligence reveals itself, which can be neither 
that of the medium, nor that of any other living 
person. 

It is this third case which constitutes the decisive 
proof of the Beyond. But the second has a decisive 
experimental value, since it confutes the skeptics 
who would maintain against every evidence, that all 
manifestations come from the medium. We have 
already cited the case of Mrs. Kirby for the table, 
that of Sophie Swoboda for writing, and the experi- 
mental counter-proof that was made with Mr. and 
Mrs. Newnham. 

It has been proved by these cases that the cellular 
activity of the motive organs may be released by 
the thought of an outsider; that is to say, the mus- 
cular agent is sensitive to telepathic action, and it 
is through this that the phenomena of the table, of 
handwriting and of all other automatic manifesta- 
tions, are related to the general phenomenon which 
produces these manifestations. A remark which may 
surprise people who have never reflected upon it is 
that messages of a high order, those which are pre- 
sented under telepathic forms such as inspiration, 



218 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

presentiments, prophetic visions, are necessarily too 
vague and uncertain to constitute a proof. The 
popular phenomena, however, which are derived in- 
directly from inferior activities, those which manifest 
themselves under an exterior material form such as 
raps, automatisms, etc., are the only ones which 
appear on the physical plane in a definite form and 
confirmed by a certain degree of evidence. 

This is why the proof of survival, or simply the 
proof of the existence of supernormal intelligences 
can be obtained only in this way, a way so often ridi- 
culed. This explains sufficiently all the difficulties 
and obscurities that one meets in the practice of 
psychic study. 

A great number of manifestations reveal many 
things which could not be within the knowledge of 
the medium nor within the consciousness of any 
person in the gathering. It is therefore necessary 
to suppose that a supernormal intelligence, an en- 
tity from the Beyond, a witness of the revealed fact, 
has set in motion, according to the ordinary process, 
the automatism which operates the transmission of 
the message. This supposed agent may act more 
or less after the manner of an unconscious mirror. 
Example : * 

"Lady Mabel Howard was particularly gifted 
in automatic handwriting. One day some friends 
asked her if she could designate, by the aid 
of her powers as a medium, the location of 
some stolen jewels. Lady Mabel took a pen and 
wrote automatically, 'In the river below the bridge 
at Tebay.' There had been no reason to suspect 

i Proceedings of the Society for Psychic Research, Vol. IX, 
p. 44. 



SPONTANEOUS MANIFESTATIONS 219 

this, and the knowledge of the experimenters was 
limited to the account of the theft in various news- 
papers. It developed, however, that the thieves had 
just been arrested at Tebay, but this circumstance 
was utterly unknown at the time of the communica- 
tion. The jewels were recovered a month later 
under the bridge." 

Camille Flammarion gives a series of facts of the 
same class, communicated by Mr. Castex-Des- 
granges. 1 Since they are of great interest, we sug- 
gest that the- reader have recourse to them, as we 
are unable here to quote fully. To these communi- 
cations which reveal things outside the conscious- 
ness of those present it would be well to add those 
which concern special consciousness, and which the 
medium would find it impossible to draw from him- 
self. Thus a series of experiments conducted by 
Mr. J. P. Barkas with Madame d'Esperance as a 
medium, shows us that the motive agent, tracing 
automatically, was able to answer the most difficult 
scientific questions, dealing with heat, light, elec- 
tricity and magnetism, etc. 2 Even though these 
answers to difficult problems appear quite satis- 
factory, it behooves us to notice that the criticism 
would be of little value if it failed to discuss the 
intrinsic worth of the solutions proposed. The in- 
habitants from the other world are like us — beings 
in the process of evolution; they do not at all 
possess the infallibility which by hypothesis is at- 
tributed to them by the incredulous. The value of 

i Les Forces Naturelles Inconnues, 1907, pp. 513-521. 

2 Consult the Accounts given in Psychical Review, 878 Vol. 
I, p. 215; Animism and Spiritism, Aksakof p. 332. In Shadow- 
land. Mme. d'Esperance, p. 138. 



220 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

the phenomenon consists wholly in the fact that 
an educated man may converse with the foreign 
entity on subjects concerning which the medium has 
no idea whatsoever. 

It is certain, moreover, that we communicate with 
a strange being every time that the medium carries 
on a conversation in a language of which he knows 
nothing, for there is no possible way of considering 
this fact as a pathological case. The cases are 
numerous in which testimony has been advanced 
showing that a medium has written or spoken in a 
foreign tongue. 

The most celebrated case, one whose authenticity 
is irreproachable, appeared in Spiritual Tracts, by 
Judge Edmunds, New York, 1858. Tract No. 6, 
Speaking in many Tongues. "The judge," says 
Aksakof, "en joyed during his time considerable 
fame in the United States for the high offices which 
he filled with distinction, first as President of the 
Senate, later as a member of the Court of Appeals." 

Judge Edmunds who had passed two years among 
the Indians could converse with his daughter in 
several little known dialects. But many other wit- 
nesses testify that his daughter gave communica- 
tion in the Indian language and also in Spanish, 
French, Polish and Greek. She spoke Italian, Portu- 
gese, Hungarian, Latin and other languages. 

We cite one of the best known episodes, as related 
by Aksakof. 1 

"One evening when about ten people were gath- 
ered at my house, a certain Mr. Green, an artist 
of this city, came accompanied by a man whom he 

i Animism and Spiritism, ed. 1895, p. 358. 



SPONTANEOUS MANIFESTATIONS 221 

presented to us under the name of Mr. Evangelides, 
of Greece. 

"The latter spoke English imperfectly but ex- 
pressed himself very accurately in his native tongue. 
A personality which addressed him in English soon 
manifested itself and communicated to him a large 
number of facts, proving conclusively that the com- 
municant was one of his friends who had died in 
Greece several years before, but a friend of whose 
existence none of us had ever heard. 

"From time to time my daughter uttered a phrase 
or a few words in Greek, which suggested to Mr. 
Evangelides to ask the spirit if he himself could 
speak Greek. The conversation was then continued 
partly in Greek and partly in English by my 
daughter, and entirely in Greek by M. Evangelides. 
My daughter did not always understand what 
Evangelides said in Greek, but it happened fre- 
quently that she understood what the two were say- 
ing to each other, though it was in Greek. At times 
the emotion of Mr. Evangelides was so great that 
it attracted the attention of those present. We 
asked him the reason for it but he always evaded 
a response. At the end of the seance, however, he 
volunteered to us that he had never before been a 
witness of any spiritual manifestations, and that in 
the course of the conversation he had made various 
experiments in order to study this species of phe- 
nomena. These experiments consisted in touching 
on various subjects which my daughter could not 
possibly know, and then in changing the theme ab- 
ruptly by passing from every-day questions to ques- 
tions political, philosophical or otherwise. 

"In answer to my interrogations he assured us 
that the spirit understood Greek and spoke it cor- 
rectly." 



222 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

It is not impossible that the telepathic sense gives 
a medium an intuition of the idea which passes 
through the brain of his interlocutor, even though 
he speaks in a foreign tongue; but this would never 
explain the automatic action considered in its active 
and unconscious form which, in space, is a motive 
suggestion exercised upon the vocal organs. 

Writing in a foreign language by a medium is 
another motive action which proves in an absolute 
manner the intervention of an outside influence. The 
natural explanation would be, that he who speaks 
a language, must have learned it, and those who 
reject this evidence invoke the exaltation of the 
intellect, or at least the hypothetical faculties of 
the somnambulistic consciousness ; they do not per- 
ceive that they are having recourse to the marvelous 
and that they are explaining all by a miracle. 

We could cite many examples, but it suffices to 
know that these proofs exist and that the motive 
action coming from an exterior source is capable of 
affecting all the organs. 

There are, moreover, the cases of visual hand- 
writing which must be classed among the sensory 
hallucinations as visual images. Many mediums see 
certain graphic signs which they implicitly copy. 
These are reminiscent of many of the early experi- 
ments upon the transmission of thought, the process 
of which is slow and painful. 

It would seem rational to us to approach these 
facts through known examples of such transmission 
among living beings. The possibility of this has been 
experimentally demonstrated by Messrs. Guthrie, 
Rawson, Schmoll, Lombroso and others. 

A woman about thirty-five years old introduced 



SPONTANEOUS MANIFESTATIONS 223 

to Mr. Richet by Fred. Myers, who did not know 
Greek — in fact, she was quite ignorant even of the 
alphabet — was able to write several pages in that 
language, deciphering with difficulty from a text of 
different printed works of which she seemed to have 
only a mental vision. 1 

Mr. Richet declares this fact inexplicable. Ac- 
cording to him, any explanation is absurd. "Be- 
cause these explanations are absurd," said he, "is 
that a reason for rejecting the facts? It would 
be a grave error to try, despite everything, to give 
a rational explanation to all the facts we do not 
understand." 

And without doubt, it seems to me, the nearness 
of relationship which we deduct from these cases is 
a tentative move toward a rational explanation. I 
do not see that there is any absurdity in calling a 
cat a cat, and a human spirit a human spirit. In 
attributing similar effects to similar causes we do 
not make a distinction between an incarnate human 
being and a disembodied human being. But for 
Mr. Richet spirit is a convenient invention. In the 
same manner he declares, as savages explain hail, 
rain, and flashes of lightning by the actions of genii 
or devils, we would explain the incomprehensible 
phenomena of the spirits. We see in this interpre- 
tation a slight lack of coherence. For my part I 
declare without hesitation that if hail, rain and 
lightning seemed to me to be spiritual manifesta- 
tions and if I obtained a certain fixed result in 
praying for hail and rain, then indeed, I would 

i A long study upon this interesting case is found in Annals 
of Psychic Science, June, 1905, Article of Chas. Richet entitled 
Zenoglossy. 



224 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

attribute this remarkable effect to an intelligent 
cause. The agent who gives these communications 
does, in a certain measure, what he is asked to do. 
Often he himself dictates the conditions of the at- 
tempted experiment, indicates whether we should 
take a pen and seat ourselves at a table or remain 
passive in awaiting a visual image, an auditory 
image, or a motive suggestion. And yet the ob- 
jectors say: "There is nothing spiritual in all that, 
it is merely an unknown force." That may be, but 
this force possesses all the attributes of person- 
ality. When the agent who is the first cause of all 
these phenomena is suddenly forced to an action, 
it is often found to be the spirit of a living person 
who was capable of transmitting the image or the 
movement. This occurs, apparently, without the 
seeming participation of the human body, so that 
it is not absurd to say that the latter counts for 
nothing in the transmission of the thought; that 
this, in the case of deceased persons, is due to the 
animistic body, substantial and capable of ex- 
teriorization, which has our endowments. This we 
have shown by numbers of phenomena already cited. 
We have then the proof of an intervention from the 
Beyond each time that it becomes impossible to 
attribute to a living being an act which is beyond 
the organic possibilities of the medium, or of his 
acquired knowledge. Moreover, the intelligent agent 
varies his methods. Thus the automatic relaxation 
of the motive centers of a medium which could be 
explained by enthusiasm or impulse, cannot be ex- 
plained in the same way if the agent produces the 
writing by movements which his organism has never 
produced before, as, for instance, is the case with 



SPONTANEOUS MANIFESTATIONS 225 

the board. We know that there is a manner of 
spelling with a stationary board supplied with an 
arrow, which some unknown influence forces to 
journey towards different letters of the alphabet. 
The arms go through a new kind of gymnastics for 
which they have not been prepared by any previous 
training. It often happens that two persons may 
produce a phenomenon which separately they could 
not attain. It is evident then that if the movement 
were due to the awakening of certain unconscious 
activities, the union of the two pairs of hands would 
only impede the action. 

It is just the contrary which happens when this 
association is possible; harmony shows itself spon- 
taneously and the phenomenon occurs with a pre- 
cision which surprises all those present. It even 
happens that the board supplied with a pencil may 
write directly as on the paper. The following is 
an example which we find in the works of Sir Oliver 
Lodge. Two young girls were writing with a board, 
in the presence of some ten people. This board 
would not work with any other combination except 
that of the two girls. These young ladies, who 
were very well educated, conceived the idea of ask- 
ing a spirit who maintained that he had been first 
in a competition at the University, to give them the 
formula of an equation which should represent a 
curve forming the outline of a heart, which was the 
shape of the board of which they were making use. 

m, r> x sin 0i 
Ihe answer: K= 



Oliver Lodge says that Mr. Sharpe, of Bourne- 
mouth, was kind enough to trace an exact copy of 
i Human Survival, by Sir Oliver Lodge. 



226 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

this curve and that this figure was a good repre- 
sentation of the ordinary form of a board. He 
adds, "It is naturally more difficult to invent an 
equation complying with a given curve, which the 
writing did in this instance than to trace a curve 
when the equation has already been given." 

Another complication which, even with allowance 
for enthusiasm or exaltation, surpasses the powers 
of man, organic as well as intellectual, is that pro- 
duced by several messages obtained simultaneously. 
For example, see in Aksakof (p. 381) what Dr. 
Wolfe says of the celebrated medium Mansfield, who 
wrote with both hands at once, and talked at the 
same time. Mr. Crookes, in his Researches on the 
Phenomena of Spiritualism (p. 167), testifies to a 
similar fact: 

"In my presence several phenomena were pro- 
duced at the same time, and the medium was not 
aware of all of them. I saw Miss Fox write auto- 
matically a communication for one of the spectators, 
while a second communication on another subject 
was given to her by a different person by means of 
the alphabet and by raps. During this time she 
was talking with a third person without the slight- 
est embarrassment upon a third and quite different 
subject. In order to understand better to what 
point certain intelligent occult influences may take 
possession of physical organs and vary their action, 
even passing from one person to another, one must 
know of the curative effects which are sometimes pro- 
duced, which give every evidence of having been 
directed by spiritual beings." 

The following report is borrowed from the work 
of F. Myers, Human Personality and its Survival 
of Bodily Death: 



SPONTANEOUS MANIFESTATIONS 227 

Curative action exercised upon Mrs. X.: 

"The author of the report, says Myers, is a doctor 
occupying an important scientific position in con- 
tinental Europe; we know of him because we cor- 
responded with him through a mutual friend. He 
enjoyed a European reputation as a scholar. He 
has discussed the case with his wife and with Dr. X, 
and has seen the account which we are now publish- 
ing in abbreviated form. 

"We are obliged to disguise the identity of Dr. X 
and even to withhold the name of his country, as 
the strangeness of the facts which we are to relate, 
would be regarded as absolutely in bad taste if 
presented to his present scientific following. Dr. 
Z, who makes his appearance here under the un- 
certain character of a magnetic spirit, is also a 
scholar of European fame and a personal friend of 
Dr. X. Mrs. X one dark night sprained her right 
foot. Fifteen days after our return to M. her 
foot was almost well, but shortly afterward I fell 
ill and Mrs. X became greatly fatigued in caring 
for me. During the whole winter, Mrs. X was 
obliged to keep to her room, her foot in plaster — or 
treated with dressings of silicate. Finally this 
treatment was abandoned and there was a return to 
the simple bandage and the use of crutches. The 
circulation of the right foot caused an inflammation 
of the tissues and we were seriously alarmed. At 
this time several friends interested Mrs. X in certain 
attested feats of spiritism, of which up to this time 
she had but very vague ideas. The guiding spirit 
of a group of which one of my friends was a member 
proposed the spiritual intervention of Dr. Z. They 
settled on a day for a visit of the doctor to Mrs. X. 
Mrs. X was informed of the time set. Occupied by 
other things we completely forgot the date of the 



228 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

meeting. But, on the said day, April, 1891, Dr. 
Z announced himself by raps on the table. Only then 
did we remember the promised interview. I asked 
the opinion of Dr. Z on the nature of the malady 
of Mrs X's foot and the knocks answered, through 

the medium of Mrs. the word, 'tuberculosis,' 

signifying that there were tuberculosis in the arti- 
culations. Of that in truth, there had been some 
symptoms. A few days later Dr. Z returned at our 
request. He promised to undertake the cure of 
Mrs. X's foot, warning us however that there would 
never be a complete cure, that the invalid would 
remain incapable of long walks and would suffer, 
more or less from this foot, whenever the weather 
was damp — a fact which subsequent events con- 
firmed. On the 17th of August, 1891, the invalid 
felt for the first time an unusual sensation accom- 
panied by a tingling in her feet and a sense of 
heaviness in the members of her body, especially her 
feet. This sensation rapidly spread to the rest of 
her body, and when it reached her arms and hands 
a rotary movement was visible. This phenomenon 
appeared every evening after dinner as soon as she 
would seat herself in her easy chair. This was her 
condition when the family went to the country of R. 
At this place the manifestation occurred twice a 
day, lasting fifteen to twenty minutes. Ordinarily 
the invalid would place her two hands upon a table. 
The sensation of being magnetized was felt first in 
her feet, in which this rotatory movement began, 
and which then would gradually pass to the upper 
part of the body. The invalid grew capable of 
walking without great difficulty though every volun- 
tary movement of her foot was painful. Yet when 
this movement was produced by occult powers she 
did not feel pain. A new phenomenon developed. 
One day Mrs X felt herself pulled from her chair 



SPONTANEOUS MANIFESTATIONS 229 

and forced to stand upright. Her feet and her 
entire body responded to a series of gymnastics, 
whose movements were regular and rhythmical, as 
in an artistic dance. This occurred often in the 
succeeding days, and at the close of each attack the 
duration of which was one or two hours, the move- 
ments became very violent. Mrs. X had never had 
the simplest of gymnastic exercises, and these move- 
ments would have been exceedingly painful and ex- 
hausting, if she had been forced to do them of her 
own will. However, she was neither fatigued nor 
out of breath at the end of each exercise. Every- 
thing seemed to be progressing satisfactorily and 
Dr. Z announced that his care was no longer in- 
dispensable. But the next day an accident made 
matters much worse. Mrs. X, desirous of taking 
something from her wardrobe, mounted with great 
precaution upon a low chair, the four feet offering 
a sure, solid basis; just as she was getting down, 
the chair was violently pulled from under her and 
thrown some distance away. Mrs. X fell on her 
weak foot, and all the treatment had to begin again. 
In a later letter, Dr. Z explains that according to 
the story of Mrs. X this movement seemed due to 
an invisible force and not to a natural fall from 
the chair. Mrs. X was accustomed to bandage her 
foot herself every day. One day she was stupefied 
to feel her arms seized by an occult power, and 
directed by a force outside herself. From that day 
on the bandages were adjusted according to all the 
rules of art and with a perfection that would have 
done honor to the most skillful surgeon in the world. 
Though Mrs. X was very skillful herself, she had 
never had the slightest opportunity to acquire the 
least acquaintance with surgery, but nevertheless the 
bandages were irreproachable in their exactitude 
and everyone admired her skill. When Mrs. X 



230 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

wished to renew the bandages she put them all rolled 
upon the table within reach of her hands and me- 
chanically her hand took the bandages, which 
seemed to assist more perfectly the occult operator. 

"Mrs. X was accustomed to dressing her own hair. 
One morning she laughingly said, 'A court hair 
dresser ought to arrange my hair, my arms are 
so tired.' Her hands immediately began to move 
automatically without any fatigue to her arms, 
which seemed sustained, and the result was a coiffure 
so intricate and beautiful that it was entirely differ- 
ent from anything she had habitually worn. The 
phenomena hitherto cited have been purely sub- 
jective. 1 

"In those which follow, however, there is some- 
thing objective. When we are treated by a cele- 
brated physician, as remarkable as Dr. Z, it is but 
natural that we should wish to have our friends 
or neighbors enjoy the same privilege. An official 
in my department had been suffering from pleurisy 
for several years; he was forced to remain in bed, 
and suffered frequently from severe headaches. He 
consulted Dr. Z who prescribed an internal treat- 
ment, which to my great surprise consisted in cer- 
tain little pills at regular intervals which this dis- 
tinguished surgeon had never been known to use 
during his lifetime. He also had Mrs. X use mes- 
meric gestures of ten or fifteen minutes' duration. 
It is remarkable that though these passes were made 
with great violence, Mrs. X's hand never touched 
the face of the invalid, always remaining a milli- 
meter away from it. Of herself Mrs. X could 

i We respect the text of the report, but we acknowledge that 
we do not understand how one can qualify as subjective, 
phenomena whose cause is visibly outside of the subject and 
of which the latter has neither knowledge nor direction. In 
any case he comes to a decision prematurely and designedly 
upon the question under discussion. 



SPONTANEOUS MANIFESTATIONS 231 

never have been able to direct her movements with 
such a degree of precision. Another time a servant 
A, whose husband was sick in a hospital, came to 
see Mrs. X and with tears in her eyes, told her 
that she had lost all hope of his recovery. Mrs. 
X asked Dr. Z to take him under his care, which 
he promised to do, and added that he would make 
the patient unaware of his presence. The next day 
A, going to the hospital, found her husband very 
much dejected. 'Listen,' said he. 'To my general 
miserable state, there is now an added nervous con- 
dition. I was shaken all through the night, my 
arms and legs were constantly moving absolutely 
beyond my control.' A smiled at this, and told 
her husband that Dr. Z had undertaken his cure 
and that he would soon be better. The invalid was 
restored to his normal state and is very well, as 
well as is possible with an incurable pulmonary af- 
fection. 

"As to Mrs. X's foot, I have the firm conviction 
that it was cured by those rhythmic movements which 
were imposed upon her by occult magnetism. 

"You ask me if these agents belong to the human 
race. I answer, 'Yes,' provisionally, unless we pre- 
fer to admit that beyond our world there exists 
another world which, differing from humanity's 
world, yet knows and studies it as we study nature's 
realms — a world in which for amusement, or from 
other motive, someone plays the role of our departed 
friends." 

I am far from exhausting the series of spon- 
taneous facts which are attributed to occult causes. 
I say nothing of haunted houses where, nevertheless, 
the whole series of facts observed through mediums 
may be spontaneously produced, because I wished 



232 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

to limit myself to the simple facts which tend to 
prove the survival of departed spirits. 

If I seem to have made an arbitrary division in 
treating as a separate group, a series of mani- 
festations of very different kinds, it is because I 
have felt that these spontaneous facts, observed in 
all places and at different times, attested by reliable 
and intelligent witnesses, could not but help to con- 
vince those who find it difficult to accept proof of 
experimental seances. They are the only facts 
which are produced spontaneously with or without 
a medium and which are of such a nature as to 
silence all objection. 

For myself, I maintain that these facts establish 
beyond the shade of a doubt that there is in us a 
second body, which is not the soul but which serves 
as a substratum to a mysterious force. This William 
Crookes calls the psychic force. This second body 
and the element of which it is composed does not 
arise from what we know as the real physical, but 
is capable of experimentation. Finally, we have 
stated empirically that this body obeys thought, is 
capable of movement, and is malleable; that it is 
able to exteriorize itself and even to make itself 
material. In its normal state, this body explains 
all the manifestations of organic life and produces 
no other exterior manifestations ; but in some con- 
ditions, as yet insufficiently studied, it is easy to 
assert that this body is capable of exteriorization, 
and also that influence of every nature may act 
upon it and replace momentarily the normal in- 
fluence that we commonly call -personal action. 



CHAPTER XI 
MANIFESTATIONS FROM THE BEYOND 

"For my part, I have no doubt whatsoever on the subject. 
I have had definite proof that the beings who communicate 
with us are really those whom they declare themselves to be." 

Sir Oliver Lodge, 

Speech, November 22, 1914. 

Where is the Beyond? It is generally admitted 
by psychicists that the Beyond is not a place; 
mental life is not limited by space. The Be3 r ond is 
a mental condition capable of crossing the present 
known limit of the relation of beings. Beyond? 
We are alwaj^s there, even at present. We are there 
in such a manner, however, that from the physical 
plane we cannot communicate with our fellow beings 
without making for ourselves a new material means 
of communication. 

In the Beyond, we do not experience physical 
sensations, but we live through thoughts and feelings. 

It follows that in the present incorporation, we 
are not in a condition to communicate. Between 
you and me, relations cannot be established except 
by the aid of a subterfuge, which has been created 
by us through the medium of verbal images or words, 
which moreover would have remained abstract rep- 
resentations had it not been possible to clothe them 
with a material body for the physical plane. 

These images have taken on in handwriting a 
233 



234 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

visible body which presents itself to our visual facul- 
ties, and in the word which addresses itself, more 
particularly, to the auditive organs. Thus sounds 
and written signs are the material symbols which 
affect the material organs, and through them reach 
the intellectual plane; and these conventional signs 
give you no absolute certainty in communicating 
with me since with my lips and with a pen, I can 
lie without your even suspecting it, because between 
you and me, no really direct relation may exist. 

The "ego" sees into the Beyond; it exists inde- 
pendently of the physical body, just as my thought 
exists by itself independent of those sounds by which 
I express it and of the material characters which 
I trace upon paper. We shall now approach the 
great question — "Is there in the Beyond something 
other than ourselves ; are there manifestations from 
the Beyond which come from strange beings?" 
These manifestations, if they exist, are outside our- 
selves ; they may produce themselves spontaneously 
and not otherwise. William Stead, the distinguished 
journalist and English spiritist whose heroic death 
occurred on the Titanic, defined his position in re- 
lation to the Beyond in the Review of January 15, 
1909. He used a comparison from the recent ap- 
plication of wireless telegraphy. He compared the 
tomb to the ocean before Columbus had discovered 
America; then, by an ingenious supposition, Mr. 
Stead pictured the explorer and those who followed 
him, as incapable of navigating from the West to 
the East. No one then would have been able to 
make the return voyage. All Europe would there- 
fore have concluded the non-existence of another 
continent. Nevertheless American civilization would 



MANIFESTATIONS FROM THE BEYOND 235 

have progressed along with that of the Old World. 
European navigators would have persisted in ex- 
ploring and, one day, one of them would have ar- 
rived at a flourishing republic on the other side of 
the water. What would he do then? He would 
hasten to use every resource of modern science to 
inform the mother country; he would try, let us 
say, wireless telegraphy, at that time quite imper- 
fect ; thus in Europe they would have received dis- 
torted, obscure, possibly incomprehensible messages. 
After many deceptive messages, they would finally 
be able to decipher a somewhat clearer one: 

From Captain Smith (South Sea) to the Lloyds, 
in London. "Everybody alive, safe and sound. 
Discovery New World, filled with descendants of 
Columbus and his companions." 

But this message might be accredited to any 
European Marconi station; it would be necessary 
that a certain number of opinionated, incredulous 
searchers after the truth should undertake to follow 
up this statement and verify it by experiment, be- 
fore the people would be convinced and admit the 
possibility of a phenomenon at first seemingly un- 
believable. But gradually better equipped receiving 
stations would be established and the solution of 
practically the same difficulties which confront us 
when we try to establish with actual certainty the 
existence of another life after death, would have 
been achieved. 1 

Our position is well defined by this comparison. 
The Beyond manifests itself spontaneously; if we 

i See the article in full in the Revue Scientifique et Morale 
du Spiritisme, March, 1909, p. 529. 



236 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

reply with indifference, skepticism, or ridicule to the 
efforts which it makes, all effort will cease. The 
difficulty consists in the preliminary establishment 
of a receiving station. We must at least accept 
this hypothesis in order that we may have corre- 
spondence with the Beyond; we must pay attention 
to the slightest indication of a wireless telegraphy 
which may perhaps be sent us from beyond the 
tomb. And in order to be in condition to receive 
these hypothetical messages, we must also, so far as 
possible, perfect the receiving stations. These re- 
ceivers are the "sensitives" ; in themselves they are 
but useless aids to lucidity. Even though they ob- 
tain the most valuable communications, of which 
they themselves are but the simple narrators, these 
communications would be worthless were they not 
attested by sufficient witnesses. The ideal receiving 
post would be that which could be established with 
a clairvoyant who was at the same time sensitive 
to these influences and capable of being put in touch 
with the Beyond in a somnambulistic state. It 
would be necessary, moreover, that this person be 
capable of great self-sacrifice, that he or she be 
surrounded by experimentalists thoroughly ac- 
quainted with such phenomena, well informed upon 
the history of physical science, not skeptical and 
working under the aforesaid hypothesis. There 
should be a resident medium in a locality where it 
would be possible to have many witnesses supplied 
with pecuniary resources and a material organiza- 
tion, making possible the maintenance of a society 
for study. This, the laws of France render impos- 
sible, for a society may not possess any localities 
whose revenue permits it to supply funds for ex- 



MANIFESTATIONS FROM THE BEYOND 237 

periments or to be used to contribute to the living 
expenses of its adherents. 

Fortunately, conditions are better in England. 
To her is the honor and the glory of having in- 
stituted a receiving station, where it was possible 
to obtain the first authentic message from the 
Beyond. 

It is great good fortune for us that the Society 
of Physical Research not only claimed such men as 
F. H. Myers, Hodgson and Oliver Lodge, who stand 
for absolute scientific guarantee, but that it found 
in the person of Mrs. Piper an exceptional medium 
whose enthusiasm and devotion is above all praise. 
. The case of Mrs. Piper — studied with perseverance 
by these men who accept, provisionally and as 
hypothetical, the personalities of those who pre- 
sented themselves as the spirits of deceased relatives 
— has given such results that all the consultants 
had the sensation of the real presence of the relatives 
and their friends. All the scholars who have fol- 
lowed these experiments closely had ended by ac- 
cepting this interpretation. In trying to explain 
the facts of clairvoyancy by the reading of thought 
and by subconsciousness, one attempts the impos- 
sible. If the sub-consciousness of Miss Smith has 
created seven or eight personalities of distinct 
characters, each one having its own language, its 
particular handwriting, and its characteristic 
orthography, Mrs. Piper could have produced 
several hundreds of personalities equally intelligent; 
that is to say, hundreds of memories which would 
make no confusion among themselves. I cannot, 
for want of space, dwell longer upon the obscurities 
of her early attempts. 1 They were gropings and 

i See the book by Mr. Sage, Mrs. Piper. 



238 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

do not affirm in the least the value of the results 
since obtained. 

The trances of Mrs. Piper written by Mr. F. M. 
Myers, 1 may be divided into three phases: 

1. When the principal directing being was Dr. 
Phinuit and when he made almost exclusive use of 
the vocal organs. 

2. When the communications were obtained in a 
state of trance, principally through automatic writ- 
ing and under the special surveillance of the being 
known as George Pelham. Nevertheless, Dr. Phinuit 
often communicated during this period, 1892-1894. 

3. When the direction belonged to Imperator, 
Doctor Rector, and some others, and when the com- 
munications took place generally in writing, and 
sometimes by word. 

This last phase commenced in 1897, it continues 
to the present, and promises to continue hereafter. 
After the obscurities and confusions of the begin- 
ning the intervention of other spirits was a detri- 
ment to the phenomena. It seemed that it would 
be necessary to guard against these importunities, 
by a telephonic cabinet directed from the outside. 
Many mysterious entities concentrated to overcome 
these disturbing influences. Conditions were thus 
better established, the mysterious correspondents 
could express themselves more securely in influencing 
the motive centers of the medium. 

This agrees with many other experiments. It 

often happens that persons absolutely ignorant of 

spiritualism making a test merely for amusement 

see a being who puts the question to them, "Why are 

i Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily Death, 1903, 
Vol. VII, p. 257. 



MANIFESTATIONS FROM THE BEYOND 239 

you here?" and the answer, "I do not know, I have 
seen a light, I was urged and I am here." 

Thus spirits think in words, think in writing; 
and if no disturbing influence comes to destroy the 
effect, the physiological mechanism of a medium 
would be apt to reveal itself automatically, under 
this simple excitation. In the case where two hands 
write at once, it is because there is harmony between 
the two spirits, though each one thinks in a different 
organ. Sometimes there is a struggle, a pause, or 
incoherence when a medium resists. This struggle, 
however, only seems real, we find it at the beginning 
of all mediumship ; but in the case of Mrs. Piper 
the order was not re-established until after the inter- 
vention of George Pelham. 

George Pelham, pseudonym, is one of the most 
interesting personalities of all those who tried to 
manifest themselves through the intermediary of 
Mrs. Piper. He was a young man, well brought 
up, who had casually studied the case of Mrs. Piper 
in company with Dr. Hodgson, secretary of the 
American Branch of the Society. He died, the vic- 
tim of an accident, and several weeks after his death 
communications obtained through the mediation of 
Mrs. Piper seemed to come from him. 

It was in 1892 that Dr. Phinuit, an enigmatic 
entity, who up to that time had commanded as a 
master, was chased from his domain, or at least 
forced to share it with a newcomer, who established 
his identity beyond a doubt. 

George Pelham, who had but recently died, seemel 
to have kept intact his recollections, although in the 
course of the experiments, he declared — "I am with- 
drawing from you more each day." For seven years 



240 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

these experiments have lasted, for it was four weeks 
after George Pelham died, from an accident while 
riding, that his intervention revealed the value of 
the communication. 

George Pelham was confronted with an audience 
of thirty or more old friends, his father, and his 
mother. He recognized each one and called them 
all by name, maintaining the same attitude that in 
life he was accustomed to observe towards them. 
Every time a newcomer was presented to the medium 
he was introduced under a false name. It was neces- 
sary therefore, to possess great credulity in order 
to attribute this limitless power of divination to 
Mrs. Piper. 

Each consultant always asked very intimate ques- 
tions, even very futile details. G. Pelham was 
always able to give exact details, as for example, 
to indicate the special features of a porch, a swing, 
or a chicken coop of a country house. And these 
descriptions all conform to reality. 

Mr. Pelham, the father, received from the mouth 
of the spirit all he could have expected to hear from 
his living son. 

The sixteenth volume of the Annals of the So- 
ciety is especially dedicated to the seances of James 
Hyslop, a person of considerable importance in the 
State of New York. 

Prof. Hyslop was presented to Mrs. Piper at a 
most favorable time, that is, at a time when she 
was evolving, coming out from that early period of 
obscurity which characterized her beginning. His 
introduction took place, like all the others, later on 
and under the name of Mr. Smith, so as not to give 
the medium any indication of the personality of her 



MANIFESTATIONS FROM THE BEYOND 241 

visitor. The professor had taken the precaution to 
mask himself in the carriage before approaching 
Mrs. Piper's house. He waited until she went into 
a trance before he spoke in her presence; despite 
all of these precautions the professor's father called 
him by name and talked to him, giving proofs of 
his identity and seeming to be well acquainted with 
the most intimate history of the family. He gave 
his son an exposition of the religious doctrines in 
which he had believed during his life. "Only some 
supernormal power," adds Professor Hyslop, "which 
one accorded to the second personality of Mrs. 
Piper, could have been able to reconstruct so per- 
fectly the moral personality of my deceased parents. 
But to admit it, would carry me too far into the 
improbable. I prefer to believe that it is my parents 
themselves to whom I have spoken, it is much 
simpler." 

At the last seance Prof. Hyslop threw off his 
intentional reserve. He neglected the precautionary 
measures which up to that time he had always taken ; 
he wished to see if this change of attitude would 
influence the communicant as it would affect a 
friend in the flesh. "The result," said Hyslop, "was 
that I conversed with my disincarnated father with 
as much facility as if I had talked with my living 
father over the telephone. We understood one an- 
other perfectly by half phrases and half words, as 
in an ordinary conversation." It would seem really 
true that in the best of these seances the voices from 
beyond the tomb have made themselves understood, 
and have answered successfully all the required con- 
ditions. 

Mrs. Piper acted under the strange, intelligent, 



242 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

and conscious influence of the intimate life of the 
consultants. Telepathy does not explain at all this 
conduct of intelligent beings who make themselves 
manifest. Thus the latent desires and memories of 
the consultants are without effect on the communica- 
tions; sometimes even the spirits themselves make 
those confusions, which only they could cause; here 
is an example. 1 

James Hyslop evoked the memory of a certain 
Mr. Cooper, whom he wished to recall to his father's 
memory. The latter began to speak quite volubly 
of Mr. Cooper but not at all in the manner, ex- 
pected by the consultant. The misunderstanding 
was later clarified. All that the father had reported 
was exact but related to another Joseph Cooper, 
the sire, with whom the deceased had been on very 
intimate terms, a fact of which the son was ignorant. 
The father later remembered the one whom his son 
had evoked, Samuel Cooper, and quickly cited the 
particular fact that they were wishing to recall to 
memory. Reading of thoughts cannot explain this 
and similar incidents. All this took place in a con- 
versation, but Mrs. Piper also wrote mechanically, 
and this method became the usual medium of George 
Pelham. It is on this occasion that we may attest, 
once more, the simultaneous action of motive agents. 
Thus, while Phinuit spoke by word of mouth to the 
medium, G. Pelham wrote on a totally different sub- 
ject, using her right hand, while a third interlocutor 
could have, with her left hand, answered a third 
consultant. We have cited the testimony of Hyslop 
but there are many others; the reader who wishes 
to consult the annals of the Society can find there 
Hodgson's reports, of which the following is the 
conclusion : 

i See these incidents in Mr. Sage's Mrs. Piper, p. 201. 



MANIFESTATIONS FROM THE BEYOND 243 

"In the first communications, G. Pelham positively 
undertook the task of showing to the whole assembly 
that he could prove the continuation of his own 
existence and those of other communicants. This 
was in conformity with a promise he had made to 
me about two years before his death, saying that 
if he died before I did and if he still lived, he 
would give himself over entirely to establishing this 
truth. By the persistency of his effort to surmount 
all difficulties of communication in every possible 
manner, by his zeal to serve as introducer in a 
seance, by the good advice he gave to me as an 
experimenter and to the others present, he has dis- 
played, as far as I am able to judge this complex 
and still obscure problem, all the order and per- 
severance which characterized Pelham in his life. 

"To sum up, the manifestations of G. Pelham have 
not been of a changing or spasmodic nature, they 
were those of a continued and surviving personality 
remaining distinctly himself during the course o" 
several years and keeping his independent character, 
whether the friends of G. Pelham were present or 
not." x 

Further on, Hodgson concludes: 

"At present, I believe without the slightest doubt 
that the communicants referred to in the preceding 
pages are indeed those of whom I spoke, the real 
personalities that they claimed to be; that they have 
survived the change that we call death, and that 
they have directly communicated with us, these so- 
called living ones, by the intermediary of the organ- 
ism of Mrs. Piper, when in a trance." 

i Human Personality and its Survival, 1903, Vol. II, p. 243. 



244 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

We wish to make known, and we cannot emphasize 
it too strongly, that these communications are sur- 
rounded by the highest scientific guarantees. Hodg- 
son, from whom we quote these conclusions, was an 
eminent doctor, with the degree Ph.D. and LL.D. 
While quite young he had interested himself in 
psychic studies with the real aim of discovering their 
fraudulency and of exposing them. He made a visit 
to India to prove the unreality of the pretended 
phenomena attributed to the Yoghis and to the 
Fakirs, in which he succeeded beyond the fraction 
of a doubt. Later, he came to the United States 
thinking to achieve the same result with Mrs. Piper. 
But there the discoverer of fraud was himself con- 
quered, he became an assiduous member of the So- 
ciety for Psychic Research and did not hesitate to 
make sincere profession of his faith. 

We read in the Annals of Psychic Sciences of the 
year 1906, page 64, that the Reverend Dr. Minot 
J. Savage, who was intimately acquainted with Dr. 
Hodgson, considered him one of the most scrupulous, 
scientific, and skeptical investigators that he had 
ever known. He said of him that after having 
fought against the conviction for a number of years, 
he felt finally obliged to make known to the whole 
world that he was forced by the facts to believe that 
those whom we call dead are really the living; that 
we may communicate with them, that he was ab- 
solutely certain of having communicated with them 
and with several of their departed friends. He estab- 
lished thus, in an absolutely scientific manner, the 
identity of several of the intelligences who were 
manifested through Mrs. Piper. 

It is opportune to mention here the definite proof 



MANIFESTATIONS FROM THE BEYOND 245 

of identity Dr. Minot Savage obtained through his 
own son. This case, reported by himself, is given 
by Ernest Bozzano, Annals of Psychic Research of 
the year 1906, page 534. 

"In the course of one of these seances with Mrs. 
Piper, a personality manifested itself, declaring that 
he was my son. I omit the description of the in- 
cident, in order to limit myself to the following 
episode: At the time of his death, my son, occupied, 
with a medical student and another old friend, a 
room on Joy Street, Boston. Formerly they lived 
on Beacon Street, but he had moved from there after 
my last visit, so I had never entered his room on 
Joy Street, had never even heard him speak of it, 
and could have had no idea of anything that he 
would say about it. He said to me, 'Papa,' and he 
said it with a real expression of anxiety, 'I wish you 
would go immediately into the room that I occupied, 
look into my drawer, and you will find there a pile 
of loose papers. There are some of them that I 
wish you would put aside, and destroy without de- 
lay.' Having said this, he did not seem to be satis- 
fied until I formally promised him to do as he wished. 
It must be remembered that Mrs. Piper was in a 
trance while her hand wrote this interview. She had 
not known my son personally, he did not remember 
ever having seen her. Moreover this allusion to the 
loose papers that for some unknown reason he de- 
sired so keenly should be destroyed, is of a nature 
to exceed the limits of all possible conjecture, even 
in case Mrs. Piper had have been awake. Though 
I was on very intimate terms with my son, such a 
jdemand seemed to me inexplicable; I was at a loss 
to discover the reason for it, and did not even try 
to do so. Nevertheless I went to the room in which 
he had lived. I found the papers, and had no sooner 



246 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

begun to read them than I understood his reasons 
and the great importance which he attached to the 
promise I had made. He had thrown these papers 
into the drawer trusting to their safety, and I real- 
ized he would not wish to have them made public 
at any price. It is surely not I who would violate 
his confidence by revealing their contents. I shall 
limit myself to saying that my son's anxiety was 
completely justified. Perhaps someone wiser than 
I will be able to explain to me how Mrs. Piper could 
know such a secret." 

In this narration, we find the revelation of some- 
thing of a very intimate nature, evidently unknown 
to any living person. Consequently, telepathy is 
not a sufficient explanation and the intervention of 
the son of Minot Savage seems very certain. 

The Society of Research is not the only organiza- 
tion that has obtained like results, but they possess 
an abundant reserve of classic documents in which 
one may have faith because they have always re- 
jected, after investigation, those narrations of sub- 
jects in which a certain disagreement of witnesses 
was revealed. 

Nevertheless, outside of this Society, we have a 
rich documentation of facts surrounded by experi- 
mental guarantees. Thus the following case, for 
which a whole year of research was necessary before 
the identity of the communicant was established. 

It happened at the office of the commercial House 
of Mr. Fidler at Goteborg, Sweden. 

In 1890 Mme. d'Esperance was writing a business 
letter, when on her letter, already begun, appeared 
the name of Sven Stromberg. As it was a very 
bungled letter Mme. d'Esperance laid the sheet aside, 



MANIFESTATIONS FROM THE BEYOND 247 

but in the evening she mentioned the fact in her 
daily report and thus the copy of the letter, stuck 
away in the office, was later found and served to 
gratify to the date April 3, 1890. 

No one knew Sven Stromberg and the incident 
would have remained unnoticed if two very prominent 
psychicists had not happened, two months later, to 
become cognizant of similar experiences. These 
gentleman proposed to attempt several trials of 
spiritual photography. From the first seance a di- 
recting being, Walter, intervened and said, "There 
is a man here named Stromberg who wishes to an- 
nounce to his family that he is dead." Mr. Fidler 
then asked if he were the same one who had written 
his name upon a piece of paper at his office. They 
said yes, adding that his family lived in Jemtland, 
but that he, Stromberg, had died in America, at 
New Stockholm. 

Meanwhile, it happened that Aksakof and Bout- 
lerow, while preparing their photographic experi- 
ments, made a simple attempt to focus their photo- 
graphic apparatus when, to her great surprise, 
Mme. d'Esperance felt her hand touched; and as 
soon as the light of the magnesium flared up, a wit- 
ness declared that he had seen a man standing behind 
her. Walter then stated that it was the aforesaid 
Stromberg, who died at New Stockholm, March 31st. 
The plate, quickly developed, confirmed the state- 
ment of the apparition. Yet no one knew Sven 
Stromberg; and in the hope of obtaining an ex- 
planation or some light upon the matter, the photo- 
graph was sent to Jemtland in order to discover 
if a man having that appearance had emigrated to 



248 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

America in 1886. On his part, Mr. Fidler had 
written to Canada to the Swedish consul. 

The response from Jemtland was negative, as the 
curate of the parish of Stroem, where the photograph 
had been sent, answered that he knew only a certain 
Sven Ersson, who had married and had gone to 
America about that period. On the other hand, 
they did not know New Stockholm, and for a moment 
it was decided to abandon the whole affair. But all 
was cleared up when news was received from America. 
Delayed information furnished by the consul to an- 
other correspondent of Mr. Fidler established the 
fact that Sven Ersson, of the parish of Stroem in 
Jemtland, Sweden, had married Sarah Kaiser and 
had emigrated to Canada, where he took the name 
of Stromberg. He had bought a strip of land in 
a county called New Stockholm, had three children 
and had died March 31, 1890. This is the resume 
of the facts in their essential elements. It is always 
possible to invent a fantastic theory to explain 
similar communications by the mystery of subcon- 
sciousness, but it is really far easier to believe the 
communicants; as Prof. Hyslop said, it is simpler. 

As may be seen, we have had recourse by prefer- 
ence, to the experiments where the prevailing condi- 
tions conformed to scientific exigencies, but it is not 
necessary to believe that the representatives of 
science alone are able to register these phenomena. 
On the contrary, their methods and skepticism act 
at variance with the manifestations, even preventing 
them sometimes from appearing. Successful mani- 
festations are obtained in the inner shrine of spirit- 
ualistic seances, but the testimony of scholars is 



MANIFESTATIONS FROM THE BEYOND 249 

valuable in order to confirm whether the spiritualists 
have seen clearly and observed carefully. 

We might fill a whole book, dwelling simply upon 
spiritual documentation, for spirits as well as our- 
selves are capable of discerning the true and the 
false. For this ability, judgment, an upright spirit 
and a pure intention suffice. 

Are we asked for proofs of identity which may 
be produced in a spiritual seance? Read then, the 
following case which we have borrowed from the 
scholarly study of M. Gabriel Delanne. 

The case of Abbe Grimand. 1 

On the 13th of January 1899, twelve persons were 
gathered at the house of Mr. David, Place Des Corps 
Saints (Square of Holy Bodies), number 9, at 
Avignon, for their weekly spiritualistic seance. 

After a moment of reflection, Mme. Gallas (in a 
state of trance) turned on her side towards Abbe 
Grimand and spoke to him in the sign language of 
the deaf-mutes. The mimic speech was so rapid, 
that the spirit was urged to communicate more 
slowly, which he did. As a precaution, the im- 
portance of which is evident, Abbe Grimand an- 
nounced the letters as they were transmitted by the 
medium. Since each isolated letter signified nothing, 
it was impossible, even though we desired, to inter- 
pret the thought of the spirit. It was only at the 
end of the communication, that the medium under- 
stood, after the reading had been made by one of 
the members of the group, charged with its transcrip- 
tion. Moreover, the medium had employed a double 
method, one which announced every letter of a word 

1 Gabriel Delanne, Becherches sur la MSdiumniU, Paris, 1902. 



250 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD' 

so as to indicate its orthography — the only visible 
form for the eyes — and another which emphasized 
articulation without paying any attention to the 
graphic form. This method of which M. Fourcade 
is the inventor, is in use only at the institution for 
deaf mutes at Avignon. These details were furnished 
by Abbe Grimand, director and founder of the estab- 
lishment. The communication relating to the great 
philanthropic work to which Abbe Grimand has de- 
voted himself, was signed brother Fourcade, deceased 
at Caen. 

None of the audience, with the exception of the 
venerable ecclesiastic had known or could possibly 
know the author of this communication, or his 
method; though he had spent some time at Avignon 
thirty years ago. The members of the group 
present at this seance signed their names to this 
communication — Toursier, retired director of the 
Bank of France, Roussel, Domenach, David, Bre- 
mand, Cannel, and their wives. To the minutes is 
affixed the following attestation: 

I, the undersigned, Grimand, priest, director and 
founder of the Institution for infirmities of speech, 
for deaf mutes, for stammerers, and abnormal chil- 
dren, at Avignon, testify to the absolute accuracy of 
all that is reported here above. I owe it to truth to 
say that I was far from expecting such a manifesta- 
tion, of which I understand the great importance 
from the spiritualistic point of view, of which I am 
a faithful and fervent adept and which I do not hesi- 
tate to proclaim publicly. Avignon, April 17, 1899. 

Signed, 

Grimand, Priest. 

We must recognize that a communication obtained 



MANIFESTATIONS FROM THE BEYOND 251 

by means of conventional signs which the deceased 
alone knew gives us the best proofs of identity that 
one could possibly wish. 

These proofs are often made by writing. In vain 
do we say that we must disdain these automatic 
messages; we know that they can be produced 
through automatism and we also know what dual 
personalities are capable of. But neither autom- 
atism, nor second or dual personality, could invent 
details relative to a family, reveal things of which 
the deceased alone could be aware, nor write in a 
language that the medium did not know. And these 
fictitious creations could not possibly imitate the 
writing of a person whom we wished to identify. 

We have already seen a person from the beyond, 
presented under the name of Elvira, give proofs of 
her purer and real existence by producing in a child's 
brain the suggestion of a certain dream. Here is 
an example of certain manifestations that the same 
being produced by writing. As before, it is Dr. 
Ermacora who gives the account. 1 

Padua, 
June 17, 1892. 
Case of Doctor Ermacora. 

Miss Marie Manzini, living here at Padua, has 
been experimenting for several months with auto- 
matic writing. She is habitually influenced by a 
personality who announces herself under the name 
of Elvira. 

April 21, 1892, Mile. Maria Manzini received a 
letter from Venice announcing that her cousin Maria 

i Taken from the book by F. Myers, Human Personality, 
No. 858. 



252 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

Alzetta was seriously ill with consumption. For 
a long time Mile. Manzini had not heard from this 
relative; she merely knew that she had remained a 
widow without any children, that she had remarried, 
and now had two children by her second husband. 
The evening of the same day she wrote in my 
presence under the control of Elvira. She asked the 
following questions : 

"Can you tell me whether my cousin is seriously 
ill?" 

A. After a moment's interval : "She has very little 
time to live, she is leaving three lonely children." 

Q. "Did you know that for the first time when I 
was told of her illness?" 

A. "No, I knew it for a long time, but I did not 
wish to trouble Marie" (the medium). 

Q. "In this case, why were you so long in an- 
swering?" 

A. "I went to see how she was, to be able to give 
you the precise details." 

The next day Mile. Manzini, writing to Venice, 
offered to visit the invalid. On the 24th she received 
a reply expressing a desire that she come and saying 
that the invalid was in the hospital. She wrote again 
to ask for the authorized visiting days. Before the 
return of this answer, Mile. Manzini wrote in my 
presence (April 28th), under the influence of Elvira 
and we put the following questions : 

Q. "How is the invalid at Venice? Do you know 
why the reply to my letter has not arrived? Do you 
know the visiting days at the hospital?" 

A. "The condition of the invalid remains the same. 
Not much hope. She has undergone a serious opera- 
tion; therein lies the danger. To-morrow morning 
Maria will receive a letter. Visitors such as she are 
received every day at the hospital." 



MANIFESTATIONS FROM THE BEYOND 253 

Q. "Do you mean, like her, relatives of the in- 
valid?" 

A. "No, but like her, those that come from a 
distance." 

We could not see what connection there could be 
between an illness of the lungs and a surgical opera- 
tion, and we questioned the medium. 

A. "She is tubercular. But the operation was 
necessitated because of the birth of her last child." 
"In brief," the doctor concluded, "the automatic writ- 
ing informed us of facts entirely unknown to our 
ordinary consciousness; in particular, the fact that 
the invalid had three children, and that she had 
undergone an operation. 

"We are far from being able to invoice, as 
an explanation here, the aid of clairvoyance or 
telepathy. 

"Indeed, an automatic message explains the mat- 
ter most simply, and this explanation seems to be 
the true one." 

Dr. G. B. TEemacoea. 

We also obtain proofs of high value in the cases 
where certain manifestants, absolutely unknown to 
the persons present, reveal the circumstances of their 
death and give details which are confirmed by in- 
vestigation. We have already quoted the case of 
Stromberg. The Society of Psychical Studies at 
Nancy 1 has published examples of this. They are 
ordinarily poor devils killed by accidents or suicide 
who give all necessary information for identification. 
Bozzano relates in the Annals of Psychic Sciences 
(year 1909, page 222), the case of a young girl 
dead from poison, a case of such a nature as to 

i See the Revue Scientifique et Morale du Spiritisme, year 
1907, Jan., Feb., March numbers. 



254 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

convince the most skeptical. But on this matter 
the Society of Psychical Research is equally well 
supplied with documents; the reader will find there 
an example of the greatest value — one whose worth 
is recognized by all serious investigators — in the 
case of Blanche Abercrombie 1 attested by Myers. 

We shall not end this chapter without returning 
to the subject of phantoms. In treating material- 
izations we have seen the difficulties arising from 
this problem. If the apparitions are difficult to 
produce, they are even more difficult to control, so 
much so, that not only are we able to contest the 
reality of the ghost, but even to wonder if it will 
ever be possible to identify or to prove its existence. 

There are several cases where the proof of iden- 
tity has been obtained. In these the manifestation 
was produced with enough intensity and returned 
often enough to convince the experimenters that they 
were really in the presence of an intelligent entity, 
having all the appearances of the deceased. 

We have first the celebrated case of the wife of 
Mr. Livermore, Es telle; we find the following in the 
work of Aksakoff, upon the subject of her written 
communications : 

"There were about a hundred messages received on 
the cards which Mr. Livermore marked and brought 
himself. They were all written, not by the medium 
(of whom Mr. Livermore held the hands during the 
whole seance), but directly by the hand of Estelle 
and sometimes, even under the eyes of Mr. Liver- 
more, by the spiritual light created ad hoc, a light 
which permitted him to recognize undeniably the 

1 See Proceedings 8. P. B. Vol. XI, p. 96 and continuing, 
or Hwrnan Personality, Vol. II, p. 231. 



MANIFESTATIONS FROM THE BEYOND 255 

hand and even the whole face of the one who wrote. 
The writing in these communicaions was a perfect 
reproduction of the handwriting of the living Mrs. 
Livermore. 

"We find therein a double proof of identity verified 
not only by the writing's being in every way similar 
to that of the deceased, but also couched in a 
language unknown to the medium. The case is ex- 
tremely important and presents to our eyes an ab- 
solute proof of identity." x 

Another woman received a similar proof from a 
deceased friend, through the mediumship of Eglin- 
ton. This friend was an Austrian, and the cor- 
respondence was in English. Once, however, she 
received a German letter written in Gothic char- 
acters very beautifully formed and in a faultless 
style. This German letter, Aksakoff remarked, pre- 
sents the same value as the messages of Estelle writ- 
ten in French. 

Some quite similar cases are met with that are 
supported by testimony not all of which has the 
same value, but we know enough to conclude that 
the phenomenon is possible and that the proof has 
been made. 

We have the good fortune to possess a decisive 
case; it is that of a phantom appearing spontane- 
ously in a haunted house, and seen by a lady who 
could enter into communication with him because 
of her natural gifts of clairvoyancy. By her as 
intermediary the Society of Psychical Research was 
able to undertake an investigation which leaves no 
doubt as to the objective reality nor the personal 
identity of the apparition. This proof rested upon 

1 Aksakoff, Animism and Spiritism, pp. 547-548. 



256 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

the knowledge of terrestial affairs on the part of a 
deceased spirit. 

Case of Mrs. Claughton. 

The case was investigated by F. W. H. Myers, 
who knew the names of all the persons implicated 
in this intimate little story, and who is willing to 
attest the reality of all the controlled facts As 
it is a question of a rather recent affair and the 
persons are well-known, the narrator has been 
obliged to omit certain details. Here is an abstract 
of my notes taken from the Proceedings. 1 

Mrs. Claughton is a clairvoyant, of whom there 
are several in her family, but she had never tried 
to develop her gifts. She was a widow, having two 
children, accustomed to good society and known to 
every one as a vivacious, intelligent, and active 
woman, too much occupied with her own affairs to 
concern herself with those of others. 

In 1893 she lived at No. 6 Blake Street, in a 
house belonging to Mrs. Appleby, daughter of Mrs. 
Blackburn, who had died there after three days of 
residence. The house was haunted. Mrs. Claughton 
had been there three days when she saw a ghost 
which she described as answering to the appearance 
of Mrs. Blackburn, who had died in the house and 
who was absolutely unknown to Mrs. Claughton. 
There are material proofs that she twice saw this 
ghost, who spoke at length about facts unknown to 
Mrs. Claughton. Some facts were immediately veri- 
fied and were recognized as exact. The other de- 
tails furnished her concerned a delicate mission 

i Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, Vol. XI, 
p. 547. 



MANIFESTATIONS FROM THE BEYOND 257 

which Mrs. Claughton was ordered to undertake. 
She was given the description of a village of which 
she had never heard (Myers designates the name as 
Meresby). She was also given the names and 
descriptions of several people whom she was to visit 
there; and the various incidents of the journey she 
was to take were accurately foretold. 

Mrs. Claughton then went to Meresby, where she 
found everything conforming to the information 
which had been furnished her. She was told that 
she would receive supplementary instructions, and 
she received them. She was instructed to make cer- 
tain communications to the survivors, which she did; 
and if the intimate revelations could not be verified, 
at least material proofs were produced that she had 
effectively made the journey and the visits conform- 
ing to her recital of them. She had no other motive 
in going to Meresby than to perform the mission 
which had been confided to her by the apparition 
in the middle of the night. She, moreover, had no 
other motive than this in visiting people who were 
total strangers to her. 

She was to accomplish we know not what secret 
ceremony in a church of the place, and that in the 
middle of the night. She took the necessary steps 
to obtain authority for this visit (Myers knew the 
motives of the secrets guarded by the interested sur- 
vivors and feels that their silence is fully justified). 
There is no plausible hypothesis to explain why this 
woman undertook this voyage and made these efforts 
under the domination of an insane suggestion, since 
the visit was for her only a source of trouble and 
weariness. Moreover, in order to obey the injunc- 
tion of the ghost she had left a sick child at home. 

It should be noted that at the first word spoken 
by Mrs. Blackburn's ghost Mrs. Claughton had an- 
swered, asking her: 



258 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

"Am I dreaming or is this a reality?" and that 
Mrs. Blackburn had replied: 

"If you doubt, look up the date of my marriage." 

And she gave the exact date of her marriage, 
which had been celebrated in India. 

The next night the ghost of Mrs. Blackburn ap- 
peared a second time, accompanied by a man who, 
declaring that he was buried in the cemetery of 
Meresby, gave the name of George Howard. Since 
Mrs. Claughton did not know him at all, he indicated 
the dates of his marriage and of his death, asking 
her to verify them in the parish register. He begged 
her, after this verification, to come to the church 
during the night, to lock herself in there alone, and 
to wait near the tomb of Richard Hart, in the south- 
east corner of the lower side. He also gave the 
latter's age and the date of his decease, which could 
be verified by the registers. He asked her to go 
to his grave and pick some white roses which she 
would find there and to send them to Dr. Ferrier 
with her railroad ticket. In order that she might 
do this she was told, her railroad ticket would not 
be requested upon her arrival. She was to receive 
the assistance of a dark man named Joseph Wright ; 
and his wife, in whose home she would stay, would 
tell her she had a child buried in the same cemetery. 
It was only later that she was to learn the end ot 
the story whose secret was guarded. These revela- 
tions were made while two ghosts were present, but 
a third personage appeared whose name Mrs. 
Claughton cannot reveal. He was standing at the 
right of Mrs. Blackburn and seemed greatly troubled, 
hiding his face in his hands. At the end Mrs. 
Claughton fainted, but not before she had recourse 
to a signal for help which after the first apparition 
had been placed under her pillow. Dr. Ferrier, the 
administrator of the haunted house, verified the date 



MANIFESTATIONS FROM THE BEYOND 259 

of Mrs. Blackburn's marriage, and discovered at the 
Post Office that Meresbj was really a little town in 
Suffolk County. Mrs. Claughton then left Blake 
Street and came to London on Friday, where she 
dreamed that she had come to the village on a holi- 
day and was wandering from place to place looking 
for a lodging. Saturday she went to the depot and 
entered the lunch room asking the employee there 
to call her some time before the departure of the 
train; but the latter, by mistake, looked for her in 
the waiting room, so that she missed her train. She 
visited the British Museum about 3:50 in the after- 
noon. 1 At Meresby she had great difficulty in find- 
ing lodgings and finally sought refuge in the home 
of Joseph Wright, who was found to be the sac- 
ristan. On Sunday Mrs. Wright told her of her 
darling little girl buried in the cemetery. Mrs. 
Claughton attended the Sunday services, going im- 
mediately afterwards to the sacristy in order to 
verify the dates on the registers. Joseph Wright 
had known George Howard and recognized her 
description of the apparition. He then conducted 
Mrs. Claughton to the tombs of Richard Hart and 
George Howard, on the latter of which there was 
no grave stone but three mounds surrounded by a 
grating, twined with white roses. There she picked 
a white rose for Dr. Ferrier as she had been asked 
and visited the vicar, who showed himself quite un- 
sympathetic to her undertaking. After luncheon 
she visited, in company with Mrs. Wright, a park 
which surrounded the country house of George 
Howard. She then awaited the coming of night, 
wondering whether she would have the courage to 
fulfill her mission to the end. Joseph Wright took 

i The importance of these minute details is that they were 
verified in every particular. This is a method of the Society 
for Psychical Research from which it never deviates. 



260 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

her to the church about one o'clock in the morning; 
they examined the nave to make sure there was no 
one there. Finally alone and without a light, at 
twenty minutes after one, she kept vigil over the 
tomb of Richard Hart, and without experiencing 
any fear. Here she received a communication, of 
which she is forbidden to speak. It was the con- 
tinuation of the story previously given to her on 
Blake Street. She was asked to take a second white 
rose from the tomb of Richard Hart and to give 
it to his daughter, whose home at Hart Hall was 
indicated to her. She was further asked to notice 
how charming was this daughter and how much she 
resembled her father. 

At a quarter of two in the morning Joseph Wright 
released Mrs. Claughton from the church. She 
gathered a rose for Miss Howard and returned to 
the house and went to bed, where she slept very 
well — for the first time since Mrs. Blackburn had 
appeared to her. 

These are the facts. It is useless to try to at- 
tribute the phenomenon to an overexcited imagina- 
tion or to clairvoyancy ; and it is equally impossible 
to explain by imposture a drama so complex, and 
one which required the collaboration of so many 
honest people all unknown to one another. 

Mrs. Claughton was not the only one who saw 
the phantom. Before Mrs. Claughton's arrival Mrs. 
Blackburn's own daughter had seen her, but up to 
this point it would have been possible to doubt. 
The unique fact in this story is that all its elements 
have been verified and the witnesses are irrefutable. 
Yet, even so, there are people who reject a fact 
for the simple reason that it is unbelievable. Aside 
from the consideration that experience shows us 
every day that it is absurd to reject a fact upon 
that ground alone, the absence of critical sense is 



MANIFESTATIONS FROM THE BEYOND 261 

to be deplored. The intellectual laziness of the ma- 
jority of people who reject phenomena because they 
do not care to take the trouble to understand them, 
is equally to be regretted. The voluntary in- 
credulity of skeptics is much more reprehensible 
than credulity. 



CHAPTER XII 
MORS JANUA VITAE 

Le vie est un degr6 de Pechelle des mondes 
Que nous devons franchir pour arriver ailleurs. 

Lamartine. 

I have finished. I pause of necessity before this 
incomplete synthesis in which as yet I have not 
spoken of death. It is in death that the immortal 
60ul triumphs, affirming its survival by frequent 
manifestations, the importance of which we can 
measure without awaiting the verdict of science. 
With the proofs which they contain in germ, each 
one of our chapters would suffice to prove an after- 
life. But if telepathy between living persons brings 
to us an experimental proof of the existence of the 
spiritual principle, it is in death that the continuity 
of this principle is confirmed. If the knocks, and 
other physical manifestations, present a certain in- 
terest, it is only in their connection with death that 
we find an answer to the enigma. 

If the apparitions of the living may enter into 
the domain of scientific inquiry, it will no longer 
be permissible to deny the apparitions of the dead 
on the popular grounds that they are impossible. 
Recall here the conclusion of F. W. Myers. I now 
advance a bold proposition, for I predict that be- 
cause of this new data a hundred years hence all 
reasonable men will believe in the Resurrection of 

262 



MORS JANUA VITAE 263 

Christ ; while without this new fact no sensible person 
could then any longer possibly believe in it. 1 

One may find the proof of immortality in the 
study of death and the dying, on the condition that 
observation be extended well beyond the patho- 
logical phenomenon which has nothing to do with the 
fact of survival. A mystery which closely touches 
that of after-life, the mystery of the fecundation of 
bees, was solved by a blind man. As Francois 
Huber studied the life of the bees by weighing the 
observations of those who possessed the organ of 
which he was deprived; so we, the blind ones of "the 
Beyond," may utilize the faculties of those who 
have the gift of clairvoyancy of that Beyond. I 
know that we must limit ourselves, nor trust to all 
clairvoyancy, but no one could easily persuade me 
that the clairvoyant de Prevort was a dissimulator, 
and that Madame d'Esperance was not absolutely 
sincere. I believe, moreover, that somnambulistic 
lucidity, when it is not distorted by the interpreta- 
tion of the medium, is a useful source of documenta- 
tion. Since this faculty has already been employed 
to diagnose the internal lesions of the human body, 
one may also use it to observe the various changes 
of the separation of the psychic body when it is on 
the point of leaving its mortal shell. 

Here is a curious experiment related by the Figaro 
in 1891. It is an account of a Belgian artist, 

Wiertz, whom Doctor D , his friend, put to 

sleep on the day of the execution of a murderer. 
After having experienced and described the suffer- 
ings of the condemned man, he cried out: "I am 
flying in space, but am I dead? Is everything fin- 
i Frederick W. Myers, Human Personality, Vol. II, p. 287. 



264 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

ished? No, suffering may not continue always," etc. 
Erny, who recalled this fact, added: "Cannot this 
experiment be renewed, but in a less sinister fashion? 
Let us arrange to have a subject in a profound state 
of hypnosis in the room of a dying person, if the 
relatives will allow it. If not, let us operate in the 
room or hall of a hospital or sanitorium, at the 
moment when we know that a sick man is dying." 1 

From his point of view, Dr. Ciriax has written: 

"The manner in which death is described by hun- 
dreds of clairvoyants proves that the soul or the 
spirit comes from its mortal envelope through the 
brain. These clairvoyants have remarked that, im- 
mediately after this departure, a vaporous cloud 
rises above the head and, taking a human form, 
condenses itself little by little, more and more re- 
sembling the dead person. When this fluidic body 
is formed it remains for some time but slightly 
attached to the mortal shell, by a fluidic tie from 
a region intermediate between the heart and the 
brain." 2 

In 1910 there died in the United States a man 
who enjoyed the greatest esteem in America. He 
was a medium and a clairvoyant, highly intelligent 
and possessing rather extensive medical knowledge. 
His faculties of clairvoyancy were often applied in 
the diagnoses of illness. This man has written his 
memoirs and thus describes the process of death: 

"My faculties of clairvoyancy permitted me to 
study the psychic and physiological phenomenon of 

i Erny, Experimental Psychical Science, p. 98. E. Flam- 
marion, publisher. 

2 Erny, P. P. pp. 99-100. 



MORS JANUA VITAE 265 

death at the bedside of a dying person. It was a 
woman about sixty years of age to whom I had 
often given medical advice. When the hour of her 
death arrived I was very fortunately in a perfect 
state of health, making it possible for my faculties 
of clairvoyancy to function freely. I placed myself 
in such a manner as not to be seen nor disturbed 
in my psychic observation, and set myself to the 
task of studying the mysterious process of death. 

"I saw that the physical organization was no 
longer equal to the necessities of the intellectual 
principle, but the various internal organs seemed to 
resist the departure of the soul. The muscular sys- 
tem sought to retain its motive forces. The vascular 
tissue struggled to keep the vital principle. The 
nervous system contended with all its power against 
the annihilation of the physical senses, and the 
cerebral system tried to retain the intellectual 
principle. The body and the soul, like two spouses, 
resisted their final separation. These internal con- 
flicts seemed at first to produce painful and troubled 
sensations. I was very glad, however, that these 
physical manifestations did not indicate sorrow, or 
discomfort, but simply the separation of the soul and 
the organism. A little while afterwards, the head 
was surrounded by a brilliant atmosphere, when 
suddenly, I saw the brain and the posterior part of 
the brain extend their inferior parts and stop their 
galvanic functions. They became saturated with the 
vital principles of electricity and of magnetism 
which penetrates into the secondary parts of the 
body. Or, in other words, the brain became sud- 
denly ten times more preponderant than it was dur- 
ing its normal state. This phenomenon invariably 
precedes physical dissolution. 

"Moreover, I noticed the process by which the soul 
and the mind detached themselves from the body. 



PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

The brain attracts to itself the element of electricity, 
magnetism, movement, life, and sensibility, scat- 
tered about in the whole organism. The head be- 
comes luminous, and I noticed at the same time that 
the extremities of the body become cold. The brain 
took on a particular brilliancy. 

"From this fluidic atmosphere which surrounded the 
head, I saw another head being formed, which took 
shape more and more distinctly. It was so brilliant 
that I could barely gaze upon it, but in measure as 
this fluidic head became condensed the brilliant at- 
mosphere disappeared. I deduct from this that the 
fluidic elements which had been attracted from all 
parts of the body towards the brain and then 
eliminated under the form of a particular atmos- 
phere, were previously solidly united according to 
the superior principle of affinity of the universe, 
which makes itself felt in every particle of matter. 
With surprise and admiration I followed the phases 
of the phenomenon. In the same manner as the 
fluidic head became detached from the brain, I saw 
being formed successively the neck, the shoulders, the 
torso, and finally the entire fluidic body. It was 
evident to me that the intellectual parts of the 
human being are endowed with an elective affinity, 
which permits them to reunite at the moment of 
death. The deformities and defects of the physical 
body had almost entirely disappeared from the 
fluidic body. 

"While this spiritualistic phenomenon was develop- 
ing clearly before my clairvoyant faculties, before 
the material eyes of the people present in the room 
the body of the dying one seemed to be experiencing 
all symptoms of disturbance and pain. These, how- 
ever, were fictitious, for they announced only the 
departure of the vital and intellectual forces, with- 
drawing from the whole body in order to concentrate 



MORS JANUA VITAE 267 

in the brain, and finally in a new organism. The 
mind or disincarnated intelligence raised itself up 
at a right angle above the head of the deserted body, 
but before the final separation of the tie, which had 
united the material and intellectual parts for so 
long, I saw a vital current of electricity forming 
itself on the head of the dying one and becoming the 
basis of a new fluidic body. This gave me the con- 
viction that death is only a rebirth of a soul where 
the spirit rises from an inferior state to a superior 
one, and that the birth of a child in this world, or 
the formation of a spirit in the other, are identical 
facts. Nothing was lacking, even the umbilical cord 
typified by the tie of vital electricity. This bond be- 
tween the two organisms continued for some time. 
I discovered then what I had not perceived in my 
psychic investigations, that a small portion of the 
vital fluid returned to the material body as soon 
as the cord or electrical bond was broken. This 
fluidic or electric element flowing over the whole 
organism prevents the immediate dissolution of the 
body. As soon as the soul of the person under my 
observation was released from the tenacious bonds 
of the body, I noticed that this new fluidic organism 
had become appropriated by its new form, but that 
the general appearance resembled its terrestial 
shape. It was impossible for me to know what was 
passing in this revivified intelligence, but I remarked 
its calm and its astonishment at the profound sor- 
row of those who were weeping near her body. She 
seemed to take into consideration their ignorance 
of what was really occurring." x 

Observations of this nature are valuable. Cer- 
tainly we are not unaware of what small credence 
must be accorded to clairvoyancy in general; but 
i F. N. Erney, Experimental Psychical Science, pp. 94-97. 



268 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

when it is a question of exceptional clairvoyants, 
whose honor has been constantly affirmed through a 
long life, it would be folly not to take such testimony 
into account. The above description answers ex- 
actly to a true vision because it agrees with many 
similar observations. I acknowledge, nevertheless, 
that we should accept nothing of what the clairvoy- 
ants describe concerning the life beyond because 
they interpret according to their personal concep- 
tion the things perceived on the mental plane, and 
these are often indefinable; yet we may believe them 
when they concern the physical plane. Here it was 
a question of the physical process of disincarnation. 

But we have other testimony than that of the clair- 
voyants — the statements of the dying when they 
have been called back to life, and these latter cor- 
respond fully with the observation of clairvoyants. 
The return to life, after having crossed the threshold 
of death, permits a few of them to recount their 
impressions; when the latter are doctors and keen 
observers their testimony takes on an added value. 
Here is an example, the case of Dr. Wiltse, a physi- 
cian of Skiddy, Kansas, examined by Dr. Hodgson 
and F. Myers, the records collected by the annals of 
the Society F. P. R., vol. Ill, p. 180. 

The fact was published in the Journal of Surgery 
and Medicine of St. Louis, in November, 1889, and 
in the Mid-Continental Review of February, 1890. I 
abbreviate the narration of Dr. Wiltse: 1 

"Finally the pupil of my eye contracted, my per- 
ceptions became feeble, my voice weakened, and I 
felt myself overpowered by a general sensation of 

i From Human Personality, Vol. II, pp. 815-321. 



MORS JANUA VITAE 269 

heaviness. I made a violent effort to stretch out 
my limbs. I crossed my arms on my chest, then, 
joining my stiffened fingers, fell suddenly into com- 
plete unconsciousness. 

"I remained about four hours without a throb of 
the pulse or a movement of the heart. I learned 
this later from Dr. S. H. Raynes, the only doctor 
present. During this time several of those present 
thought me dead; the rumor circulated outside and 
the bells of the village were already tolling for me. 
Dr. Raynes told me, nevertheless, that when he 
looked at my face he thought he perceived for a 
moment, a faint breath, so faint as to be almost 
imperceptible. Dr. Raynes imbedded a needle in 
my skin at various places from the head to the feet, 
but no evidence of life responded. Even though the 
pulse seemed to cease beating for four hours, the 
state of apparent death hardly lasted more than a 
half hour. I lost all ability to think, and all sen- 
sation of life; I was in a state of absolute uncon- 
sciousness. When I regained the sense of existence, 
I felt that I was still in my body but that my body 
and myself no longer had anything in common. To 
my astonishment and joy, I was enabled to observe 
my real 'ego' while my nonexistent self was im- 
prisoned on every side as in a sepulchre of clay. 
With the interest of a physician I contemplated the 
marvels of the corporeal physiology with which I 
was confused, the living soul in the dead body. 

"I analyzed my state quite calmly, reasoning thus : 
'I am dead according to the language of men and 
nevertheless I am a man more than ever. I am on 
the point of leaving my body.' I observed the in- 
teresting procedure of the soul, as it detaches itself 
from the body. A power which seemed not to come 
from within me shook my whole Ego from one side 
to the other, as one swings a cradle, and that seemed 



270 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

to enable the soul to detach itself from the bond of 
corporeal tissue. 

"At the end of a moment this lateral movement 
stopped, and I felt, and heard — at least so it seemed 
to me — innumerable vibrations of little strings in 
the soles of the feet from the big toe to the heel. 
After that I began to withdraw gently from my feet 
towards my head. I saw myself come as far as the 
thigh, and said, 'Now there is no life below the 
hips.' I have no memory of having crossed the 
abdomen and chest, but I remember clearly when 
all seemed to be concentrated in my head, and to 
have made the reflection, 'Here I am all intact in 
my head. I shall soon be detached.' I passed 
around the brain as if I had been hollow, pressing it 
all around, with its membranes toward the center, 
and came through the sutures of the brain, emerging 
like the thin leaves of a membraneous envelope. As 
to the form and the color I remember very clearly 
that I appeared to myself somewhat like a Medusa's 
head. 

"In leaving, I noticed two women seated at my 
bedside, estimated the distance between the head of 
my bed and the knees of the woman opposite, and 
concluded there was sufficient space for me to stand 
there, but I experienced an extreme embarrassment 
at the thought that I would have to appear nude 
before her. Nevertheless, I decided to attempt it, 
saying to myself that according to all probabilities, 
she could not see me with the eyes of the body since 
I was a spirit. As soon as I went out, I floated from 
the earth upward to right and to left, like a soap 
bubble which adheres to the pipe, until at length I 
detached myself from the body, lightly falling to the 
floor, from which I arose, having taken on again all 
the appearance of an ordinary man. I was as 
, transparent as a blue flame and completely nude. 



MORS JANUA VITAE 271 

With a painful sensation of embarrassment, I 
glided towards the half-open door in order to escape 
the glances from those ladies opposite me, also from 
the other persons whom I knew were around me. But 
having reached the door, I found myself dressed. 
Satisfied on this point, I came back to the company. 
As I was returning, my left elbow touched the arm 
of one of the two gentlemen who were standing near 
the door. To my stupefaction the arm passed with- 
out resistance through mine, then the divided parts 
came together without pain, rejoining themselves as 
if made of air. Quickly I looked at his face to see 
whether he had felt this contact, but he gave no sign 
of it. He remained standing, gazing fixedly at the 
bed which I had just left. I looked in the direction 
of the bed and saw my own corpse. I was there, 
lying in the attitude which I had so much trouble 
to assume, slightly turned on the right side, my 
feet close together and my hands crossed on the 
chest. I was surprised at the pallor of my face. 
I had not seen a mirror for several days and I 
should have thought myself less pale than the 
majority of people equally ill. I congratulated 
myself, for my own part, upon the decent attitude 
which I had given to my body, hoping that my 
friends would not be less favorably impressed with 
it. I saw a number of persons seated or standing 
around the body, and I noticed particularly two 
women who seemed to be kneeling at my left. I 
understood they were shedding tears. I have learned 
since that they were my wife and my sister, but at 
this moment I had no consciousness of personality — 
wife, sister, or friend, all were the same to me. I 
wished later, to attract the attention of these per- 
sons with a view of confirming them in the certainty 
of their own immortality. I made some joyous bows 
and saluted the company with my right hand. I 



272 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

placed myself in the very midst of them, but they 
paid no attention. Then the comedy of the situa- 
tion struck me and I laughed quite gayly. Never- 
theless, I thought, 'They must have heard this,' 
but it must have been otherwise, for no eyes were 
turned away from my corpse. I said to myself: 
'They only see with the eyes of the body and can- 
not see the spirits. They examine what they be- 
lieve to be me, but they are mistaken. It is not I, 
I am here and I am more alive than ever.' 

"I went out of the open door, lowering my head 
and searching for a place to put my feet in order 
to go down to the vestibule. I crossed the door- 
sill, went down the steps, and out into the street. 
There I stopped to look around me. Never have 
I seen this street so distinctly as I saw it then; I 
noticed the redness of the soil and the puddles of 
water left by the rain. I cast an anxious eye about 
me as would one who is going to leave his home 
for a long time. I perceived then that I was taller 
than I had been in my terrestial life, a fact which 
gave me much pleasure. I was always too small 
for my own comfort. 'Now,' thought I, 'in my 
new existence I shall be according to my desire.' 
I noticed also that my clothes fitted my greater 
height exactly, and I wondered with astonishment 
whence they came, and how I found them on myself. 
The fabric was a kind of Scotch cloth, a good suit, 
not luxurious but presentable. 'I feel so well now,' 
I said to myself, 'and only a few moments ago I 
was terribly sick and was suffering. Here then is 
this change, which we call death and which fright- 
ened me so greatly. Now it is over and am I still 
a man full of life and thought? Yes, truly, and 
with a mind clearer than ever. What a wonderful 
state of well-being. I shall never more be sick and 
cannot die again.' In my exultation, I leaped for 



MORS JANUA VITAE 273 

joy then again continued the contemplation of my 
figure and my clothes. 

"Suddenly I noticed that I could see a thin line 
down the back of my coat. 'How is it,' said I, 
'that I can see my back?' I looked again to re- 
assure myself, at the back of my coat and my legs 
down to my heels; I put my hand to my face to 
touch my eyes; yes, they were in their place. 'Am 
I then, like an owl who can turn his head half-way 
round?' I tried that, but without success. Then 
it might be possible, I thought, that though sepa- 
rated from my body for the moment, I may have 
the ability of seeing with the eyes of my body ; and 
I turned to look back of me. By looking through 
the half-open door to see if the head of my own 
body were on a line with myself, I perceived a thin 
thread like that of a spider's web, starting from 
behind my shoulders and ending in the body oppo- 
site, at the base of the neck. 

"I deduced from this conclusion, that, thanks to 
that bond, I could still make use of the eyes of my 
body and I went down into the street. I advanced 
a few steps and lost consciousness. When I re- 
covered I was floating in space sustained by hands 
which were holding me lightly on either side. The 
possessor of these hands, if there were one, was be- 
hind me, pushing me through the air, which seemed 
a rapid and agreeable method of locomotion. In 
time, I understood my situation better; I had been 
taken away and placed with ease at the entrance of 
a narrow but well arranged passage, which arose 
at an incline of not less than 45 degrees. Raising 
my eyes, I found the sky and the clouds to be at 
their usual height; lowering them I noticed below 
the verdant crest of the woods. I thought, 'The 
tops of these trees below are as far away as the 
clouds above.' I examined the materials of the 



274 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

road; it was made of fine sand and a kind of milky 
quartz. I picked up a piece and examined it quite 
closely. I remember very well that in the center 
there was a small black spot ; I looked at it minutely, 
and it was a small cavity apparently caused by 
chemical action of some metal. 

"It had rained and I felt the freshness of the air. 
I noticed that, despite the roughness of the slope 
I did not experience any fatigue in walking, my feet 
were light and my steps uncertain as those of a 
child. As I walked, the memory of my recent illness 
came back to my mind, and I was enjoying the 
sense of my renewed health and recovered strength. 
Then a feeling of loneliness overpowered me; I de- 
sired the society of some companion, and reasoned 
with myself: 'Some one dies every minute, I have 
been waiting merely 30 minutes, surely some one 
will die in these mountains and will come to keep 
me company.' Meanwhile I surveyed the space 
around me. Toward the east there was a long chain 
of mountains and a forest below extended to the 
side of the mountain, and beyond that, to its sum- 
mit. Below me was a wooded valley through which 
ran a beautiful river whose multitude of tiny waves 
were tossing up a veil of white spray. I compared 
this stream to an emerald river, and the mountains 
seemed greatly to resemble the heights of Waldron. 
The abrupt slope of the black rocks which lay to 
the right and the left of the road called to my 
memory Lookout Mountain, where the railroad 
passes between the Tennessee River and the moun- 
tain. Thus the three great faculties of the mind — 
memory, judgment, and imagination — acted together 
in all their integrity. 

"I awaited a companion for over a quarter of an 
hour, but no one came. Then I reasoned: 'It is 
probable that when one dies each has indivdually 



MORS JANUA VITAE 275 

to follow his given path, and is obliged to travel 
alone. As there are not two men exactly alike, it 
follows that there cannot be two travelers faring 
along the same route in the other world.' 

"I felt certain that some being from the other 
world would come to meet me, but strangely enough 
I was not thinking of any one person in particular 
that I would have preferred. 'Angel or demon,' 
said I to myself, 'one or the other will come; I am 
curious to know which it shall be.' I thought then 
that I had never believed in all the dogmas of the 
Church, but that I had by my writings and my 
words affirmed a belief I considered better. 'But,' 
I continued, 'I know nothing; is there a place for 
doubt and a place for error? It is possible that 
I am hurrying on to a terrible destination.' Then 
something difficult to describe took place all around 
me, and coming from every point, I heard expressed 
thoughts. 'Be without fear, you are saved!' I 
heard no voice, I saw no being, but I was conscious 
that at different points, at various distances from 
me, some one was thinking and expressing things 
that concerned me. How could I take cognizance 
of them? It was so very mysterious that I doubted 
its reality. A sensation of doubt and fear over- 
powered me and I began to grow very miserable, 
when a face stamped with ineffable love and tender- 
ness appeared for an instant and strengthened my 
faith. 



"Without consciousness or effort on my part my 
eyes reopened; I noticed my hands and the little 
white bed on which I lay, and realizing that I had 
re-entered my body, I cried out with surprise and 



276 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

disappointment 'What has happened? Must I die 
again?' I was very weak, but still strong enough to 
recount the preceding story in spite of all the ex- 
hortations to remain quiet." 

From replies made to investigators, it was evident 
that the sick man had correctly seen the facts and 
exterior images. Thus the two gentlemen seen near 
the door of the room in truth occupied that place, 
and the puddles of water seen in the streets were 
really outside, since the weather had been rainy. As 
to the thin fluidic thread, the subject may have had 
some knowledge of this theory, but he did not believe 
in it at all, so that no one could attribute this 
phenomenon to the visualization of an expectant 
idea. 

The recital of the doctor has been confirmed by 
five persons, who were then present, and Myers tells 
us that his interest was so keenly aroused that he, 
as well as his friend Hodgson, desired to make the 
personal acquaintance of the narrator. 

Thus all the testimony agrees in representing the 
process of death as a freeing of something which 
is not absolutely immaterial, but which is the seat 
of the thinking principle. It would be wrong, there- 
fore, to consider a phantom as an unreality. To 
reject a reality because it lends itself to raillery 
would be an attitude unworthy of a scientific mind. 
The histories of ghosts, "Les revenants" as they 
are called in French, the returning ones, find their 
justification in the established proof of the existence 
of a fluidic substratum which brings into objectivity 
the images of the world of thought. This has noth- 
ing of the supernatural, and there are apparitions 



MORS JANUA VITAE 277 

of such an authentic character that it would be 
absurd not to take them into account. 

Knowing that a living being may act upon another 
by telepathy and produce by this means a visual 
image, we know beyond the "shadow of a doubt that 
this vision is due to an exterior and active opera- 
tion. When this operation may influence the senses 
of several people it does not prove as yet, perhaps, 
its material objectivity, but it proves at least that 
which I shall call essential objectivity. 

The following apparition, seen independently by 
three people, has been reported by a member of the 
Royal Astronomical Society of London in a well- 
known scientific journal, valued highly by all 
astronomers ; English Mechanic and World of 
Science, of July 20, 1906. 

It is of importance to notice that the apparition 
appeared after a death. We shall give but a brief 
resume : 

On the tenth of January, 1879, Rev. Charles 
Tweedale, awakening in the middle of the night, 
saw his grandmother appear, observed her for 
several seconds, and then saw her gradually fade 
from sight into the moonlight. 

One thing in particular struck him — that his 
grandmother was wearing an old-fashioned fluted 
bonnet. His own father was awakened too, at the 
same moment, and saw the same apparition (his 
mother) standing near his bed. Finally the sister 
of the latter who lived 30 kilometers from there, 
had the same vision of her mother, that same 
evening at 2 a.m. Mr. Tweedale, the father, noted 
the precise instant. As for Mr. Chas. Tweedale 
(the son) he was sure, according to the light thrown 



278 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

on the walls, that the moon had crossed the 
meridian. He consulted on this subject the Secre- 
tary of the Royal Astronomical Society of London, 
who fixed the hour of the passage at 14 hrs. 19 
minutes which corresponds to 2:19 o'clock in the 
morning. The grandmother had died at 15 min- 
utes after midnight. Thus three persons, inde- 
pendent of each other, had the same vision two hours 
after the decease. Moreover, Mr. Tweedale declares 
that he had not seen his grandmother for several 
years when she died. He wrote to his uncle and 
sent him a sketch of the bonnet, asking if there 
were an analogy between it and the mortuary head- 
covering of the deceased. The uncle replied, "The 
resemblance is striking." 

The Rev. Chas. Tweedale, a member of the Royal 
Astronomical Society of London ends with the fol- 
lowing reflections: 

"The fact which I have just reported presents 
all the guarantees of authenticity, and one could 
not, I think, regard it as fraudulent. I counsel all 
the incredulous to peruse the remarkable facts con- 
tained in Human Personality, by F. Myers, and also 
those of the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical 
Research. Sixteen volumes may be consulted to 
great advantage. To those of our readers who would 
care to delve a little deeper into these perplexing 
problems with a true scholar, I would name Sir 
William Crookes, Sir Oliver Lodge, as also several 
eminent members of the Council of the Society." 

We often have great difficulty in impressing 
superficial minds with the notion that the appari- 
tions of deceased persons are really studied to-day, 



MORS JANUA VITAE 279 

and by real scholars. The question is nevertheless 
much simplified by the data recently acquired by 
telepathic messages, provoking a vision which is a 
faithful picture of the situation in which the de- 
ceased found himself in his last minutes. Often 
the manifestation is limited to simple apparition, 
which is shown calm and smiling, at the very hour 
when the sick person is expiring; it is sometimes a 
true materialization — that is, this invisible body, 
described by all clairvoyants, finds in the surround- 
ing air unknown resources of strength, so that by 
means of condensation it may attain visibility. We 
read in Telepathic Hallucinations, page 182, of a 
similar case of condensation and gradual formation, 
thus described by a friend of the deceased: 

"In proportion as it advanced, this fog, to call 
it thus, concentrated in a single place, grew thicker, 
and presented the contours of a human figure of 
which the head and shoulders became more and more 
distinctly visible, while the rest of the body seemed 
enveloped in a veil of gauze, like a mantle. The 
full light of the window fell upon the object, which 
was so lacking in consistency and so thin that the 
light, reflected on the highly varnished panels of 
the door, was visible through the lower part of the 
garment. The apparition had no color, it seemed 
to be a statue sculptured out from the fog." 

The witness of this apparition then recognized the 
features of a very dear friend; the face had an 
expression of peace, repose, and holiness. Then in 
an instant everything disappeared as a vapor does 
when it comes into contact with cold air. The next 
day's mail brought news that this friend had died 



280 L PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

at the very moment when he had been seen. It was 
a sudden death, that nothing could have predicted. 
This example belongs to a category of similar 
facts by which we may affirm that the apparition of 
the deceased is not always a matter of simple 
telepathy, but may sometimes be manifested by the 
ordinary process of materialization. Let us cite the 
following : 

Mr. Binet relates (The Unknown, p. 84) that a 
little friend of his appeared to him under the same 
conditions. It seemed to him that he saw a ray of 
moonlight walking, then this luminous shadow, float- 
ing as a dress, took the form of a body. It advanced 
towards the bed. "A thin face smiled at me," he 
said. "I cried out 'Leontine!' Then the luminous 
shadow, still gliding, disappeared at the foot of the 
bed." 

M. Binet was at this time at Donchery; the sub- 
ject was a young girl killed in the bombardment 
of Mezieres ; and the apparition was made visible 
during the very night and at the hour when the 
child was killed. Independent of the interest which 
these apparitions present, independent of the cer- 
tainty of their reality and even of the proofs of 
identity which they carry with them, we must agree 
that those seen by several persons may also pro- 
duce themselves under conditions that tend to con- 
firm the materiality of images. 

They satisfy the conditions of real things, when 
the image has been well localized by everyone in the 
same place, when it is reflected in a mirror and ful- 
fills the laws of perspective, presenting its full face 
to one, and its profile to another, etc. 



MORS JANUA VITAE 281 

An account, by C. Flammarion, will be read with 
interest. It concerns an occurrence of which he 
knew all the elements, as it took place in his own 
family. We reproduce it in full and with the com- 
mentaries of the author: 

An Apparition 

Paris, Dec. 5, 1911. 

Dear M. Leymarie: 

In answer to your request of last week for your 
Christmas number, a fortunate coincidence has 
allowed me to satisfy your wishes and I hasten to 
send you this account. Always engaged in unend- 
ing researches, I was looking without success for 
some new fact to bring to your notice when, this 
morning, a visit brought it to me. My lamented 
nephew, Capt. Camille Martin, of the Colonial In- 
fantry, died at Paris on the 22nd of last March, 
exhausted by fever and fatigue at the age of 46 
years. He passed away in an apartment on the ave- 
nue des Gobelins, in which he had lived for over a 
year. His widow and step-daughter came to an- 
nounce his demise, both still trembling, though the 
event had occurred seven months previously, from 
a psychic phenomenon worthy of attention. A long 
absence from Paris had prevented them from speak- 
ing of it to me up to this time. 

About six weeks after the death of her husband, 
Mme. C. Martin, was in her bed, in the same apart- 
ment (but not in the death chamber), when, not as 
yet quite asleep, she perceived the shade of her hus- 
band, floating in air not far from her. Her 
daughter, asleep in another bed, awakened suddenly 
and perceived the shade of her step-father coming 
directly towards her, looking at her with the sunken 



282 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

and sickly eyes which characterized him in the last 
hours of his life. She was so greatly frightened, that 
she uttered a dreadful cry, and even now, in relating 
these facts to me, she trembled from head to foot, 
and her features took on a strange pallor. I begged 
them both to write separately a summary of what 
they had seen and felt. 

These are the two accounts : 

Statement by Mme. Camille Martin. It was in 
the first week of May. I had gone to bed, quite late, 
about 11.30 or midnight, very much absorbed by 
the petty business details that I had been obliged to 
discuss during the day. The night was warm and 
the room but vaguely illumined by the lights of 
Paris. I was lying in bed unable to sleep, my eyes 
wide open, when I perceived a shadow, that of Ca- 
mille, with a grayish hue on his face, his eyes sunken, 
with deep, dark circles, and his person enveloped in 
a sort of grayish drapery. Half of his body was 
distinguishable; his legs seemed to disappear into a 
grayish tint, as if enveloped in a fog. The shade 
had just come in through an open window and 
seemed to float at about sixty centimeters above 
the floor, advancing, or rather gliding, in the direc- 
tion of my daughter's bed. From my bed, I could 
follow it the better because a mirror that faced me 
repeated each movement of the shade. Much dis- 
tressed, but without the least fear, I wondered what 
my poor Charles was seeking, when at this exact 
moment, as he was nearing my daughter's bed, she 
screamed in terror and called me, crying out. I 
answered, "Yes, I see him too, do not be afraid." 
But again she cried out more piercingly than before, 
and the shade disappeared in the mirror. After 
this vision, my daughter went to sleep again, quite 
calmly, more calmly than she ever had before, 
since this death. The next evening, the fear of see- 



MORS JANUA VITAE 283 

ing this apparition again made her so nervous that 
she did not wish to sleep in her own bed, and asked 
to share mine, trembling all the while. As for my- 
self, I have never experienced the slightest fear. On 
the contrary, I felt a beneficent calm and passed the 
rest of the night without the smallest disturbance. 

Often since, I have tried again to see Camille, by 
thinking strongly of him, but have never obtained 
the slightest phenomenon. 

I must call to your notice, also, that at the time 
of this apparition, we frequently heard singular and 
inexplicable noises in the grooves of the floor, the 
doors would clap violently, even though they had 
been carefully closed and locked and tested at vari- 
ous times. Our apartment was, as you know, on 
the fifth floor. 

M. Martin. 

Statement by Mile. Bertha Dupont. This dates 
from about the first days of May between the fifth 
and the tenth. We had retired at midnight. I 
have the impression that I had been asleep about 
an hour when I felt myself awakened as by a fluid. 
Opening my eyes, I saw a shadow a short distance 
away from me. It seemed to be vaguely draped in 
a shroud, the arms crossed on the chest, the lower 
part of the body not being visible; it was like a 
fog about to lift. The shadow seemed to float and 
advance towards my bed. I have a very distinct 
impression that I was awake and saw it approaching 
me. I recognized the features of my step-father's 
face, and was seized with an overwhelming fear. He 
came directly towards me. After having seen and 
recognized him for perhaps two seconds, I called 
out in order to awaken Mother, who was sleeping in 
the same room, almost perpendicularly to my bed, 
and to tell her of my fear. She answered me quietly, 



284 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

to my great surprise, for I had thought her asleep: 
"But I see it also, do not be afraid." In my terror 
I cried out another time to her and at this moment 
the shade vanished. I went to sleep quite calmed 
and the remainder of the night slept better than I 
had at any time since the death which had be- 
reaved us. 

Bertha Dufont. 



"Here are two observations of the same phenomena. 
The explanation generally admitted by physiologists 
is that this was a matter of hallucination. But I 
should really like to know the exact explanatory 
value of that word. It is considered as a synonym 
for the word illusion. That is to say, we have here 
a purely subjective phenomenon, and there is nothing 
that exists outside the brains of the two narrators. 
Their vision was a simple product of their imagina- 
tion, and nerves. Is a collective hallucination as sim- 
ple as that? We may suppose, it is true, that Mrs. 
Martin, under the vivid impression of the recent 
death of her husband, constantly kept alive by busi- 
ness discussions, believed she saw a shadow that had 
no real existence, herself creating it entirely, and 
that the waves emanating from her brain had 
affected that of her daughter. It is possible, but 
such an explanation, it must be acknowledged, is 
hypothetical and rather complicated. Let us fur- 
ther notice, that while the young girl watched this 
mysterious shade coming straight toward her, her 
mother had seen it in three-quarter view in the mirror. 
Divers theories have been brought out concerning 
apparitions of this nature. I do not assert that 
jve can strictly affirm the reality of the presence of 



MORS JANUA VITAE 285 

my dear nephew. It is not, as certainly, disproved. 
But the one hypothesis is not less acceptable than 
the others. Why destroy the fact of mere skepti- 
cism? It seems to me wiser and more logical to 
register the observation and add it to those of a 
similar nature. These documents will serve one day 
for definite discussion; let us not neglect any effort 
toward solution of the great problem. It may be 
something entirely different from a real apparition, 
but it is a fact of observation to analyze without 
any preconceived idea. We are still so ignorant 
of the mysteries of the soul. 

"Camllle Flammakion." 1 

The observations and documentation of which we 
have made use thus far, in order to establish the facts, 
are serviceable to conquer the resistance of the in- 
credulous. Now, however, that the credibility of 
the facts is well established, now that they have been 
verified everywhere, through mediums, with living 
persons, and at the bedside of the dying, we should 
lay aside all considerations of the objective or sub- 
jective nature of the phenomenon. Abandoning the 
mask of skepticism we should lend an ear to the voice 
of sentiment which has also the right to be heard. 
It is when the organs, ravaged by illness, are en- 
feebled, and cease to oppress the soul with the heavy 
weight of matter, that we all become clairvoyants. It 
is then that souls approach the frontier of the two 
worlds; telepathic communications are re-established 
quite naturally with the beyond; and the invisible 
appears to us. 

We read in Annals of Psychical Science, year 
1 Extract from La Revue Spirite, January, 1912. 



286 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD j 

1906, page 159; I take the following case from 
Volume III, page 32, of Proceedings of S. F. P. R. 
It was communicated to the Society by an Irish 
colonel. It being understood that the principal role 
of this event is held by the colonel's own wife, one 
may readily see why he would not desire the names 
to be published: 

About sixteen years ago, Mrs. said to me, 

"We shall have guests during the entire next week. 
Do you know of any one who could sing with our 
daughters?" I remember that my gunsmith, Mr. X., 
had a daughter whose voice was charming and who 
studied singing with the idea of becoming a pro- 
fessional. I told Mrs. of her, and offered to 

write to Mr. X., asking him kindly to permit his 
daughter to come and spend a week with us. This 
being decided upon, I wrote to the gunsmith and 
Miss Julia X. was our guest during the aforesaid 

time. I do not know whether Mrs. saw her 

afterward. As to Miss Julia, instead of devoting 
herself to her art, she married Mr. Henry Webley 
some time later. No one of us ever had occasion to 
see her again. Six or seven years passed. Mrs. 

, who had been ill for several months, was 

dying and expired the day following the one of which 
I shall speak. I was seated at her side and we were 
talking of certain matters which she wished very much 
to arrange. She seemed very calm and resigned; in 
full possession of her intellectual faculties. This is 
proved by the fact that later the wisdom of her views 
was attested, when the error of our lawyer's advice 
was recognized, he having judged useless some meas- 
ure suggested by the sick woman. Suddenly she 
changed her conversation and said, addressing her- 
self to me, "Do you hear those sweet voices singing?" 



MORS JANUA VITAE 287 

I answered that I heard nothing. She added, "I have 
heard them several times to-day ; I do not doubt they 
are angels who are coming to welcome me into 
heaven; only it is strange, that among them there is 
one voice I am sure I know, but I cannot remember 
whose it is !" Suddenly she interrupted herself and 
said, indicating a point above my head, "Why, she is 
here in the room ! It is Julia X. Now she is drawing 
near, she is bending over you, she is lifting her hands 
in prayer. Look, she is going." I turned about, 

but saw nothing. Mrs. added, "Now, she has 

gone." I naturally felt that these affirmations were 
nothing less than the imaginations of a dying woman. 
Two days later, in looking over a number of the 
Times, I happened to read in the death notices the 
name of Julia X, wife of Mr. Webley. This im- 
pressed me so keenly that immediately after the 

funeral of my wife I went to , where I sought 

Mr. X, and asked him if Mrs. Julia Webley, his 
daughter, was really dead. He answered, "It is only 
too true, she died of puerperal fever. The day of 
her death she began to sing in the morning and sang 
through the day until death hushed her voice." 

Against those phenomena produced during the 
crisis preceding death, the objection is often raised 
that they are subjective hallucinations. However, 
upon examination, this explanation seems little better 
than the one of an excited brain; first because these 
visions are beyond all that could be expected from 
the activity of an organ facing annihilation; finally 
because the elements of truth which they contain can- 
not be explained by hallucination, if we consider the 
numerous proofs of identity and premonitions fur- 
nished by these apparitions. 

We have just seen Mrs. at the moment of the 



288 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

final crisis receive a visit from a person whom she 
had no reason to suppose dead; and Mr. Bozzano 
remarks on this subject that we know no analogous 
hallucinations, producing, under the same form, ap- 
paritions of living people. On the contrary, many 
cases are presented in which the dying one perceives 
the specter of a person whom he thought still alive, 
and who in this case is really dead. 

Here, as in the preceding cases, we have only 
touched lightly upon the subject, not having treated 
any case thoroughly, hoping merely to arouse the 
curiosity of the reader by a glance over an assem- 
blage of facts, which it is very important to bring 
to the popular mind. He who is interested in these 
questions will find a special collection of books that 
will enable him to answer the objections that arise 
to these statements. But the great book has yet to 
be written upon the manifestations which take place 
around the dying. In the Annals of Psychic Sci- 
ences, Mr. Ernest Bozzano has published a series 
of ascending complexities, accompanied by very 
scholarly commentaries. We quote from it as follows : 

Br. Paul Edwards called to the bedside of a friend, 
a jick person in full possession of all her faculties, 
reports the last words which, at the time of her 
death, she addressed to her husband.: 1 "Now my 
greatest desire is to go away. ... I see several 
shades who are moving around me all dressed in 
white; I hear a delicious melody. . . . O, there is 
Sadie, she is near me and knows perfectly who I am." 
(Sadie was a little child, whom she had lost about 
ten years before.) "Sissy," said her husband to her. 

1 Annals 1906, p. 150-151, Boul. Pereire, 175 Paris. 



MORS JANUA VITAE 289 

"Sissy, do you not see that you are dreaming?" 
"Ah, my dear," answered the sick lady, "why did you 
call me back? Now I shall have more difficulty in 
passing to the Beyond. I felt so happy there ; it was 
so delightful, so beautiful." After about three min- 
utes she added, "I am going now, again; and this 
time I shall not come back when you call me." This 
scene lasted but eight minutes. We could see that 
the dying woman was enjoying a complete vision 
of two worlds at one time, because she spoke of faces 
that were moving about her in the Beyond, and 
spoke to the mortals in this world. It has never 
happened to me since to be present at a more solemn 
or more impressive death, a true passing over into 
another world. 

Other Cases Taken from the Annaxs of Psychic 
Sciences 

Dr. Wilson of New York, who was present at the 
last moments of the tenor, James Moore, speaks as 
follows : 

"It was four o'clock and the light of dawn which 
he had awaited with such anxiety began to filter in 
through the closed shutters. I bent over him and 
noticed that his face was calm and his eye clear. He 
looked at me and taking my hand in his said to me, 
'You have been a good friend to me, Doctor, you did 
not leave me.' Then something happened which I 
shall never forget to my dying day, something that 
my pen is impotent to describe. I cannot otherwise 
express myself than by saying that, though he seemed 
to have preserved all his reason, he was transported 
into the Beyond and, though I cannot well explain 
the matter, I am convinced that he penetrated the 



290 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

spiritual 3omain. In fact, raising his voice more 
than he ever had during his illness, he cried out, 
'There is my mother ! Are you coming to me, to see 
me here, Mother? No, no, it is I who will come to 
you. Wait a moment, Mother, I am almost free; 
I am able to join you; wait a moment.' His face 
had an expression of ineffable happiness, and the 
manner in which he spoke made an impression upon 
me the like of which I had never felt until that day. 
He saw his mother and he spoke to her; of that I 
am as firmly convinced as that I am seated at this 
minute. 

"In closing these memories, I wished to describe 
what has been the most extraordinary event which I 
have ever witnessed, and have recorded word for word 
that which I heard. It was the most beautiful death 
of the many at which I have been present." 

Another case, page 14-9. Mr. Alfred Smedley, on 
pages 50-51, in his work, "Some Reminiscences," 
describes as follows the last moments of his wife: 

"Some instants before her death her eyes were 
fixed upon something which seemed to fill her with 
an agreeable and very keen surprise; then she said, 
'Why, there is my sister Charlotte, my mother, my 
father, my brother John, my sister Mary. Look, 
they are bringing Bessy Heap too. They are all 
here. Oh ! it is beautiful ; how lovely it is ! Do you 
not see them?' 'No, my dear,' I answered, 'I regret 
that I do not.' 'You cannot see them?' she asked 
with surprise. 'But they are nevertheless here, they 
have come to take me with them. One part of our 
family has already crossed the great Sea, and soon 
we shall all be reunited in that celestial abode.' I 
must add that Bessy Heap was a faithful servant, 



MORS JANUA VITAE 291 

much beloved by our family, and that she always 
had a particular affection for my wife. After this 
ecstatic vision the sick woman remained for some time 
quite exhausted, then raising her eyes fixedly, 
towards heaven, and stretching out her arms, she 
expired." 

Yes! there are beauties in death which, better 
than all reasoning, carry conviction, but there are 
also truths which tax reason. The cases which we 
have just cited are among the simplest, but the same 
visions are often found in the different forms of 
phenomena which we have described elsewhere. When 
the messengers who watch at the door of death 
begin to be visible to the dying, they show them- 
selves by particular signs which prove their identity, 
or at least they give signs of objectivity. Often 
they are the purveyors of special knowledge, giving 
useful warnings ; interesting themselves in family 
affairs, or even again, as in the case of Elisa Man- 
nors, coming to collaborate with the experimenters 
with the fixed intention of furnishing a new proof 
of their identity. Consider these complications, 
weigh all this in your mind, and ask yourself if it 
be longer possible to believe in the theories of the 
accidental coincidence of hallucination? 

Another proof, which is not, as one would like to 
believe, merely an illusion, is that these same phe- 
nomena are perceived by very young children, too 
young to be accused of imposture. Even before be- 
coming ill they describe very naively the wisdom of 
a parent or little brother, who comes to tell them 
they are soon to pass over to the "other side," 
urging them to tell Mother not to weep. The senti- 



292 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

ment of the "other side" is very common with chil- 
dren, whose ideas no other doctrine has ever warped. 
They have kept a memory of having lived before, 
a memory of which they often give startling proofs, 
citing names of different personages whom they knew 
or naming the professions which they followed in a 
preceding existence, describing places they had in- 
habited, and often even the manner in which they 
died. 

After you have studied the whole series of docu- 
ments based upon testimony of reliable witnesses, a 
synthetic examination of all the data will force con- 
viction upon you. You will bow to the evidence and 
will free yourself from the deceptive suggestion that 
the hypothesis of survival is not a rational hypothe- 
sis because it is contrary to scientific data. The 
materialists are those who claim to arrive at a de- 
duction, in the same manner as those who consecrated 
error in the past centuries, and retarded a progress 
which has been realized despite them. The material- 
ist! Have you ever wished to go deeper into the 
psychology of a man who believes that he is free 
to deny a thing because it shocks his conceptions 
concerning matter? Such a man does not under- 
stand that only the striking realities appreciable to 
our senses have the right to be affirmed in a world 
where all material appearances are but illusions. The 
first error of man was to believe that the sun rises, 
that the earth is immovable, that he himself is the cen- 
ter and the aim of creation. The materialist is a man 
incapable of freeing himself from the illusion of the 
senses, a man who believes that sensation should give 
him the full measure of everything. Incapable of 
abstracting, he finds it enough to discover some ves- 



MORS JANUA VITAE 293 

tige of primitive man in a diluvian stratum of the 
third formation in order to believe that he has re- 
constructed the genesis of the world; for he qualifies 
as supernatural all that which transcends his under- 
standing. As a theologian of the fourteenth century 
denied that any other world than our small globe 
might have existed, so the materialist of to-day 
denies that there may exist something more subtle 
outside of our organism. The man who does not 
believe what he sees is very near to being ridiculous ; 
the materialist is absolutely ridiculous. Is it not he 
who yesterday denied the possibility of magnetism, 
of action at a distance, and wireless telegraphy? Is 
it not he who made the visibility of things the cri- 
terion of their reality, and who advanced the prin- 
ciple that the atom, being the only existing reality, 
contained within itself the cause of all things, and 
was the only basis of all that exists. The materialist 
is still more ridiculous to-day than the theologian of 
former times; the latter could conceive our world as 
the center of a single system. But he who proclaims 
that the atom suffices to generate the world of 
thought, is he not as foolish as he who claims that 
our globe suffices to explain the generation of suns? 
Why do we always look below for the solution which 
can be found only above? Why should we refuse to 
take into account the reasons hidden in the mystery 
of the Cosmos under the pretext that our gaze can- 
not reach them and, in consequence, the cosmic rea- 
sons must be supernatural? But you, who assume 
to know the limits of life, look into your past ; your 
mistaken theories no longer avail. You said, "Life 
is impossible without oxygen, life is impossible in 
darkness, life is impossible under the great pressure 



£94 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

of the depths of the sea"; and perhaps you would 
have been right if matter contained the germ of life. 
But since, in fact, life transcends matter, is the vital 
principle which fashions matter and organizes it, 
adapting it to its ends, observation will always prove 
you wrong. Life is manifest everywhere, even where 
it is forbidden to appear, and continues where you 
said it had ended ; and life does not even begin where 
you believed it did. In order to limit life to the 
short space of time comprised between the cradle and 
the grave, it would be necessary to affirm that beyond 
these limits there is no longer mystery. And the 
materialist accepts no mystery, for, in order to per- 
suade himself that a milligram of inert substance 
may perform a miracle in nine months, he asserts 
that his chemistry explains the progress of the 
foetus, which comes into the world for the first time. 
He assumes, then, a knowledge of the absolute and 
an understanding of first causes, and, in his lack of 
comprehension of the mystery, it is he who accuses 
the spiritualist of pretending knowledge of the divine 
secret. 

But the reverse is true. It is not necessary to 
measure the infinite depth of the skies in order to 
ascertain whether they extend far beyond the milky 
way; he who should fix that limit, would claim to 
know the depth of things. When the theologian thus 
dared to fix the limits of creation, he was obliged to 
support himself by divine revelation, just as the 
materialist of our day takes his stand behind certain 
so-called scientific revelations which do not exist. 
Science teaches us nothing of "life" and it has never 
been possible to imprison the spirit and the intelli- 
gence within the limits of a human body. No, as- 



MORS JANUA VITAE 295 

tronomy does not need to know the secrets of God, 
to enlarge the Universe. We ourselves have no need 
to possess absolute knowledge in order to make clear 
the scientific way which has enabled us to enlarge 
the domain of life. The spiritualist is, then, well 
within his rights when he looks into the Beyond and 
attempts to sound its marvelous depths. In this con- 
templation he perceives revelations which extend well 
beyond the realm of physics and chemistry; he per- 
ceives the spheres of the mind, of consciousness, and 
of intelligence, whose domain is unlimited and whose 
evolution is effected outside the limits of time and 
space. Man misunderstands himself because his soul, 
a pure diamond, is surrounded by a matrix, a 
gangue; and because the world which he sees does 
not fulfill his aspirations, he despairs. A day comes, 
nevertheless, when fatigue, and the oppression of the 
material stimulate him to make an effort. His mind 
tries to break its fetters, and the poor pilgrim of the 
earth wanders toward the city of the dead; he leans 
his ear close to the stone walls of his funeral vault 
and to his infinite surprise finds faith and hope, and 
raising his head cries out, "We do not die." No, 
we do not die, because the creative force is anterior 
to the condensation of organic lives, and because the 
study of the Beyond has proved to us that the indi- 
vidual soul pre-exists and survives corporeal destruc- 
tion. 

With the eyes of our body we see, it is true, the 
passing materializations of consciousness and intel- 
ligence, whose activity continues in the invisible, 
around the cosmic current from which everything is 
nourished. We do not die, for nothing of all that 
exists can die; the body itself is a survival and a 



296 PROOFS OF THE SPIRIT WORLD 

composition of the first organic souls which gave it 
birth. We have lived in the protozoa, in the zoophyte, 
the reptile, the bird, and the mammalia; and the 
little beings who have realized these forms have kept 
that memory in order to furnish us to-day the ma- 
terials for present incarnations. The long work of 
the centuries has not allowed its instincts to be lost — 
its memories, nor the gropings of organic life; on 
these the human soul has been grafted. 

If one of these forces which presided at the first 
formations, had for a moment ceased to exist, the 
chain of successive progress would have been broken, 
all would have fallen back into the inertia of the 
original atom. If evolution progresses it is due to 
this survival and to the inferior souls which lived on 
in us, and which are concerned with the lower func- 
tions of organic life; through their help we are able 
to ascend and lift ourselves towards the plane of 
mental life. Nature has no other goal than life; 
that is why we do not die. Life is all and matter 
is nothing; therefore matter passes and life remains. 
And those who have crossed the threshold of the 
mystery come to us and prove that a telepathic tie 
binds them to us in a certain fashion. The doors 
of the sepulcher let rays of the new light filter 
through; those who are but recently deceased hesi- 
tate no longer; pausing on the frontier of the two 
worlds, they are able to send us some material signs 
of their presence; from beyond the tomb they send 
out a last cry, of which we may catch the echo. 
Finally, when we ourselves arrive at the time of 
ordeal; when, after this sad life through which we 
have passed, we are awaiting obscurity and nothing- 
ness; our psychic vision pierces the veil of matter; 



MORS JANUA VITAE 297 

those whom we have entombed with our hands re- 
appear in a new day, coming to radiate about us the 
aurora of their smiles. Those whom we have believed 
dead cry out to us, "We do not die !" Listen to these 
voices which are heard in the history of all peoples, 
in the traditions of every age; they are not legends. 
The new revelation for us is that science now affirms 
that she has verified communication, is placing it on 
an absolutely scientific basis, and that she intends 
to occupy herself in studying its laws. That which 
gives us the right to declare this is the testimony of 
eminent men, who have devoted many long years of 
study to the examination of these facts. Listen to 
the latest one in our time, who has just made him- 
self heard. Sir Oliver Lodge, who quite recently 
abandoned all qualifications and concluded in the fol- 
lowing fashion: 

"For my part, I have not the slightest doubt upon 
the subject, although for a number of years, even 
in the last century, I have had recourse to all sorts 
of different explanations, but little by little, one after 
the other, they have been eliminated, and have arrived 
at the proof that the beings who communicate with 
us are truly they whom they declare themselves to 
be. Not always, but in the end the conclusion is 
reached that 'survival' is scientifically proven by 
means of scientific investigation. I believe that man 
is surrounded by other intelligences. If you would 
go beyond humanity, there are limitations until you 
arrive at the Infinite Intelligence itself. Once you 
have passed beyond man, you advance and you must 
advance until you reach God, Himself." 

THE END 




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